Netflix's Stranger Things trailer channels '80s supernatural, Spielberg goodness

A recent article from The New York Times found Netflix viewers typically binge a series in chunks of about two hours a day, completing a season in a week or so. But by the looks of the original series Stranger Things, I might need even less time.

In the new trailer that dropped this week, Stranger Things appears to be a supernatural/sci-fi show that's part 1980s valentine and Spielbergian pastiche. And I need it in front of my eyeballs now. 

There's not a lot to decipher from the trailer -- which poses more questions than revealing the entire plot, thankfully -- but we know a young boy is being pursued by something (alien? monster? monster alien?) and goes missing. His mom (Winona Ryder!) appears to get no help from the local police. And when the boy returns, he's ... different. He may not be the only kid to be changed, either. 

What else do we see? Kids on bikes! Weird telekinetic trickery on lightbulbs! G-men in containment suits! 

Stranger Things comes courtesy writers/directors/co-showrunners Matt and Ross Duffer, who also worked on Wayward Pines. I'm loving everything I'm seeing so far, and can't wait to binge this sucker when it drops July 15, 2016.

The official synopsis

A love letter to the supernatural classics of the 80's, Stranger Things is the story of a young boy who vanishes into thin air. As friends, family and local police search for answers, they are drawn into an extraordinary mystery involving top-secret government experiments, terrifying supernatural forces and one very strange little girl.

Stranger Things stars Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, Natalia Dyer, Cara Buono, Charlie Heaton, and Matthew Modine.

'Jaws' Returns to Theaters For a Special 40th Anniversary Screening

It's hard to believe that it's been 40 years since Steven Spielberg's film adaptation of the Peter Benchley novel, Jaws, instantly terrified all who waded into theaters.

Whether you consider Jaws a horror movie, a thriller, or a cautionary tale to never again go swimming in the ocean, it's made a lasting impact to this very day. As a little girl, I begged to see Jaws and to this day, it has affected my swimming habits. When I hear that iconic John Williams score, I get chills.

Now, on June 21, you can check it out the way it's meant to have been seen...on the big screen. In a select 500 theaters, special screenings of the film will be presented by Fathom Events, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), and Universal Pictures. According to Entertainment Weekly, "TCM’s Ben Mankiewicz will provide a special introduction for an afternoon and evening showing, as well as an encore presentation on June 24."

You can click here to see if a theater near you is participating and also, to purchase tickets in advance. Tickets are available starting on May 29.

Will you be getting your feet wet? And remember, most people get attacked by sharks in three feet of water about ten feet from the beach. Happy Summer! Oh and enjoy the original trailer embedded below...

-Larissa Mrykalo

'Falling Skies' Official Season Four Press Release

Courtesy TNT

TNT has released its official press release for the fourth season of "Falling Skies." Below is not only the release (via Spoiler TV) in its entirety plus the "Killing Moon" teaser and the first season four trailer, "Requiem." The season premiere is Sunday, June 22 at 10 p.m. ET.

Noah Wyle Stars in Top 10 Drama from Amblin Television And Executive Producer Steven Spielberg

The nightmare is just beginning for the humans battling an occupying alien force in the fourth season of TNT's hit series Falling Skies. Noah Wyle stars in the epic drama, which is produced by Amblin Television and executive producer Steven Spielberg. Also starring are Moon Bloodgood, Will Patton, Colin Cunningham, Drew Roy, Connor Jessup, Maxim Knight, Sarah Carter, Seychelle Gabriel, Mpho Koaho and Doug Jones. Scarlett Byrne (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) is set to join the cast as a regular this season, while Oscar® winner Mira Sorvino (Mighty Aphrodite, Mimic) and Treva Etienne (Terminator Salvation, Pirates of the Caribbean) are slated to guest-star along with returning guest-star Robert Sean Leonard (House, Dead Poets Society).

New 'Falling Skies' season three details

The 2nd Mass. Courtesy TNT

New details have emerged for the third season of the Steven Spielberg-produced alien apocalypse show The season, which premieres June 9 at 9 p.m. on TNT, will kicks off with back-to-back episodes, “On Thin Ice” and “Collateral Damage,” which begins a season that promises new characters and a volatile phase in the war against the occupying alien force.
Falling Skies.

The TNT release noted that the new season begins seven months after the 2nd Mass arrived in the capital of New United States, Charleston. Tom (Noah Wyle) is now serving in office and is taking an hard line approach to the alien occupation. Meanwhile, Ben (Connor Jessup) acts as the go-between with the survivors and the rebel skitters, who paint their faces with a red-and-yellow stripe to honor Red Eye, the fallen rebel skitter leader.

'Poltergeist' soundtrack coming from Mondo ... on vinyl!

If you’re a fan of Poltergeist or a collector of vinyl records (or both), then you may want to grab this while it’s available soon. How soon? Well, the creative folks at Mondo will be releasing the Poltergeist score soundtrack on Feb. 22! So, pretty soon.
According to the press release, Mondo -- the collectible art division of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema -- commissioned original cover art from Australian Illustrators We Buy Your Kids for a two-disc vinyl of Jerry Goldsmith's score. Available for $25, a small portion of clear vinyl copies will be randomly included. Also, there will be five tracks never before released on vinyl.

UPDATE 'Robopocalypse' NOT postponed indefinitely

Steven Spielberg might be willing to take on a dead president (and get an Oscar nomination for it, for Lincoln), he won't be dealing with robots any time soon.

Although shooting was to begin early this year for a July 2014 release (after getting postponed from a 2013 release), Spielberg's Robopocalypse will be on hold indefinitely, reports TheWrap and Entertainment Weekly. Adapted by Drew Goddard (who wrote Cloverfield, and co-wrote Cabin in the Woods with Joss Whedon), the movie about a post-apocalyptic robo-world - based on Daniel H. Wilson's book of the same name - won't be moving forward for various reasons, including Spielberg's potential boredom with action films and a script that's just not ready.

Anne Hathaway and Chris Hemsworth were set to star in the movie,  so with all these big guns attached, it's reasonable to expect this to be a tentpole project. But it's back to the binary for this one.

So now we can't count on the Mayans or the robots to follow through on their extinction plans!

Update: According to a new exchange between Spielberg and EW, the production will simply be delayed for another six to eight months. Says the director:

"We found that the film was costing a lot of money and I found a better way to tell the story more economically but also much more personally. I found the personal way into Robopocalypse, and so I just told everybody to go find other jobs, I'm starting on a new script and we'll have this movie back on its feet soon... I'm working on it as we speak."

-Aaron Sagers

ABC, CBS plan paranormal summer 2013

ABC isn’t giving up on paranormal shows, despite the recent cancellation of the Faustian drama 666 Park Avenue. In fact, the net has ordered a new series for the Summer 2013 slate called Weird Desk.

The show is already being compared to The X-Files and is written by Stargate’s Carl Binder and The Librarian’s David Titcher.

According to Deadline.com, the show revolves around a "clandestine organization" that investigates "alleged real-life mysteries from this world and beyond."

The Weird Desk works "above the levels of top secret and above the office of the President" and is "the destination for mysterious intelligence rerouted from the CIA and NSA ... tasked with investigating and solving occurrences of the paranormal, supernatural and sometimes extra-terrestrial." The lead characters are "Morgan," a socially-awkward genius and his special forces partner "Rosetta."

Not to be outdone, summer has CBS premiering the Steven Spielberg-produced drama, Under the Dome, based on the Stephen King novel. According to HuffingtonPost the series "will follow a New England town that finds itself suddenly - and without explanation - sealed off from the rest of the world by a transparent dome; The town's residents wind up living in post-apocalyptic conditions while they search for answers about the dome.”

With TNT bringing back fan-favorite Falling Skies, this summer is shaping up to be extra mysterious and paranormally fantastic!

-Larissa Mrykalo

'Jaws' behind the scenes pic

To celebrate the release of Jaws on Blu-ray, fellow Jaws junkie Eric (aka Quint) Vespe over at Ain't It Cool published this great shot as part of his Behind The Scenes Pic of the Day column. This is a photo I've seen before of Robert Shaw (the original Quint) lounging about between takes with Bruce the shark. Can you guess what scene they're shooting?

-Aaron Sagers

Jawsfest kickoff at Martha's Vineyard

Jawsfest is in full effect at Martha's Vineyard, where the film Jaws was shot in 1974. The festival, held Aug. 9-12, 2012, attracts fans from around the world to pay tribute to Steven Spielberg's movie - which happened to also be the first blockbuster.

According to a Universal Studios' press release, the festival also pays homage to the men and women of Jaws who have passed with a special focus on Peter Benchley, Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw. The event also coincides with Universal Studios' 100th Anniversary celebration and the Aug. 14 release of Jaws on Blu-ray.

Check out this clip courtesy Universal from Jawsfest:

Anatomy of a skitter: Inside the 'Falling Skies' aliens

Hello, Skitter. Courtesy EW, TNT

Entertainment Weekly has provided Falling Skies fans with an incredibly detailed and insightful look inside the guts of invading skitters.

In the past, we've already covered some of the FX wizardy behind Falling Skies, which received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Special Visual Effects. The show's effects are a blend of practical and CG, and result from the work of two vfx companies, MASTERSFX - mainly handling practical effects - and Zoic Studios for the digital. EW reports the two companies have teamed up before for such shows as True Blood and Fringe.

The blend of effects allows the show to have its aliens interact at close range with actors like Noah Wyle - and allows them to feature a range of nuance creature emotions - while also making it possible for the skitters to scale walls and perform other feats.

The story reveals some fun facts such as the use of a video camera and radios inside the skitter mask's head so performers like Keith Arbuthnot, who is in the suit, can see at skitter eye level and hear what's happening. We also see a bit of the harness system (different harness, 2nd Mass fans!) that allows Arbuthnot to handle the weight of the alien legs. There are also 12 individual servos inside the alien head to control movement. The factory for the harnesses, which are props that replaced later with a CG version, was inspired by executive producer Steven Spielberg's mention of the 1959 horror flick The Tingler.

Meanwhile, the large mech characters are all CG while the warrior uber-alien overlords are motion-capture with a performer in the effects studio acting out to match the actor's movements on set. Their behavior and movements were inspired by regal soldiers in Game of Thrones and Kurosawa films.

Falling Skies airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on TNT.

-Aaron Sagers

Indiana Jones gets Blu-ray release date

courtesy Paramount Pictures

The end of Summer and beginning of Fall 2012 will henceforth be referred to as the Season of Spielberg.

Even though we've known the Indiana Jones series would be appearing in Blu-ray form for a few months now, it was announced by Paramount Home Entertainment and Lucasfilm that Indiana Jones: The Complete Collection would arrive Sept. 18 - and included a completely restored Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The Indy collection comes about a month after Jaws is released on Blu-ray on Aug. 14, and about a month before E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial hits in October (with the digitally erased guns back).

Now, watch the previously-released trailer for the Indiana Jones collection (along with trailers for Jaws and E.T.), and try to contain the goosebumps ... after the jump

- Aaron Sagers

'Jurassic Park 4' back on, written by 'Planet of the Apes' scribes

According to Deadline, Jurassic Park 4 is back on and will be written by Rise of the Planet of the Apes hubby-and-wife scribes Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. The news comes after Steven Spielberg announced at Comic-Con last year that he'd like to see the movie get made in the next couple years.

After Apes ended up being a box office success, perhaps Silver and Jaffa can strike gold twice - or at least create something better than the pretty bad JP sequel The Lost World (1997) and the mediocre Jurassic Park III (2001). And let's hope and pray the once-rumored plot of dinos with guns as fourquel fodder has been effectively abandoned.

-Aaron Sagers

Steven Spielberg talks about becoming ... Steven Spielberg

This speech by Steven Spielberg to the Academy of Achievement (via Aintitcool.com) is just a great story told by a great storyteller where he details how he became a filmmaker and addict of cinema. It is an incredibly captivating tale by a personal hero - AS

Paranormal Pop Column: The Super Bowl and the super nerd

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Super Bowl XLV was a display of academic excellence; an adrenaline-fueled machismo machine  of behemoths crashing into one another, helmets crunching together, trash talk and manly tears of success - and failure - co-mingled with sweat and blood. The showdown between the Pittsburgh Steelers and victors the Green Bay Packers wasn't just a game of football, it was a symbol for football should be. It was a clash of titans (but not the Tennessee kind) on a field of battle populated by warriors.

Frankly, it was the kind of game that makes a man want to drop that hoagie or sub or grinder, or all three, just long enough to take a long draw on a bottle of beer, belch and grunt. And yet, behind the scenes of the most watched telecast in TV history, which net 111 million viewers, was a force underestimated and traditionally unwelcome at the big game: NERDS!

While those 111 million viewers gathered in front of televisions just to watch a hard-fought match, they were being subtly indoctrinated by geek culture to the tune of about $3 million for every 30-second commercial.

It is time to separate the athletes from the mathletes. Comic book heroes? Aliens? Jedi? Robots in Disguise? Seriously, are you ready for some football or are you ready for some World of Warcraft?

Ok, I kid. I joke about the nefarious nerds mainly because I am one.

Courtesy Screen Rant & Yahoo!

I was like a giddy little kid in Underoos watching the previews for comic book movies Thor, Cowboys and Aliens and especially Captain America (the brief shot of Hugo Weaving as Red Skull makes repeat viewings online worthwhile). The Super 8, Battle: Lost Angeles, Pirates of the Caribbean 4 and Transformers 3 spots (was that Lasorbeak? And did Optimus have an energon sword?) similarly triggered a nerdy response. But it was the Volkswagen/Star Wars spot featuring a pint-sized Sith lord trying to rock his Force powers - and god bless the loving father that let him think he did - that simultaneously warmed cockles and inspired chills.

<a href="http://msn.foxsports.com/video?vid=5cf789e6-2ff5-4da3-b6a9-310fdef9f80a" target="_new" title="">Disney: 'Pirates of the Caribbean 4'</a>
And between each spot, it was back to the game.

Although it's not necessarily a new development, I am always thrilled to witness the ultimate entertainment convergence that takes place at the Super Bowl. As a football fan, and a fanboy, it's dessert followed by candy to watch the game then see advertisements and first-look movie trailers for geeky movies.

Instead of the stereotype of the jock stuffing the nerd in a locker, the multi-million dollar spots have brought the brains, athletes, basket cases, princesses and, yes, even the criminals together for a breakfast club of awesome.

To put it another, geekier way, thanks to a bountiful viewership, Borg-like PR execs and marketing whizzes have assimilated us all into a giant pop-culture collective.

After all, what's the end result when time away from the game is spent nerding out over battling robots, a Norse god using a hammer against a giant metal Destroyer, pirates swashing and buckling, and an all-American, apple-pie uber-athlete taking down Nazis?

The game amongst warrior-athletes ends up feeling all the more epic and more adrenaline-fueled because the event is a Super Bowl with cameo appearances by super heroes and supernatural creatures.

'Super 8' teaser online

There are still so few details about the plot of Super 8, the J.J. Abrams-directed and Steven Spielberg-produced flick hitting theaters in 2011, but teased before Iron Man 2.

The Super 8 Web site is up, but so far just shows a blank, flitting film strip - which might coincide with New York mag's Vulture blog report the movie is about "a bunch of kids who are shooting a movie with a Super 8 camera in the seventies or eighties. When they develop the film, they notice that there's an alien creature in the frame." However, Lost maestro Abrams says, "It has nothing whatsoever to do with Cloverfield," which shoots down Vulture's theory the film is connected to his 2008 monster production.

Personally, I like a good mystery production, and love the idea of a year of teasing and theorizing with a Slusho!-style viral marketing campaign from Abrams and Spielberg. And if anyone can make a giant monster/alien flick worth waiting a year for, it's these two.

The teaser trailer playing now before Iron Man 2 is embedded after the jump.