Batch o' Hatch: April 2014

Doc: No, it can't be! I just sent you back to the future!
Marty McFly: Oh, I know you did send me back to the future. But I'm back! I'm back from the future.
Doc: Great Scott!

I'm back! At least, I want to be back. But blogging is hard these days! I don't seem to have as much time anymore, and when I do find the time to write, I'm never satisfied with what I produce. Anyone else feel me?

But I'm soldiering on! I'm taking on co-hosting duties for the LAMBcast! Check out the newest episode below!



My work over at French Toast Sunday continues will continue! We've always got some great content over there. I've got some other projects brewing with some familiar friends as well. And, most importantly, I'm going to double down here on the site, with Favorite Scene Fridays, Escape Artists, reviews and lists flowing freely.

Speaking of, I'm re-purposing Batch o' Hatch! Originally the series served as a sporadic list of links that I found interesting at the time. Now, it's going to chronicle everything we do here on a monthly basis, along with select articles and stories from the past month. Tweets too. So it's not all that different really. Let's begin!

Escape Hatch Recap

• Favourite (Animated) Scene Friday! Wall-E: The Space Dance (courtesy of  Jay from Life Vs. Film!)
• Escape Artists: March and April 2014
• Favorite (Animated) Scene Friday! The Land Before Time: Littlefoot's Mom
• Cheap Thrills Interview
• Favorite (Animated) Scene Friday! Sleeping Beauty: Birthday Prep (courtesy of Jess from French Toast Sunday!)
• Favorite (Animated) Scene Friday! The Incredibles: Brace Yourselves

Other Stories

I dropped in on the Nerd Lunch Podcast for their first ever "Nerd Lunch Theater". We came up with a really bizarro movie. It's basically an origin story of sorts for Princess Peach (or is it?). But it's so much more than that. Check it out!

Let that burn into your brains. Let it!

April was Darren Aprilofsky over at sister site French Toast Sunday and I managed to contribute one whole article! Check it out!

Tweets

If any character in the history of horror movies had it coming to them, it was Franklin from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
— Miskatonic Musings (@MiskatonicPod) April 8, 2014

German Gaming Company Announces Boozy 'Shaun of the Dead' Style Zombie Board Game http://t.co/FQwyXll2to pic.twitter.com/u9Fbbzd7Jk
— Zombie Research Soc. (@ZombieResearch) April 11, 2014

Check out my friend @zerbert as he's posed with the most intricate 4th chair question EVER in the latest @nerdlunch ep. (Good answer btw!)
— The Sexy Armpit (@sexyarmpit) April 30, 2014

@zerbert I really feel like the casting was "hey, April's a brunette. This other check is a brunette. Sold!"
— J. Chlebus (@J_Chlebus) May 6, 2014

Highlight of my flight: realizing there are actually four versions of Ride Along, each with their own color scheme. pic.twitter.com/0OWoYCxUce
— Alex Withrow (@shiftingPersona) May 16, 2014

Maybe it's actually a sequel to the Burton/Schumacher films—Batman V: Superman Dawn of Justice
— CT from Nerd Lunch (@nerdlunch) May 21, 2014

All I wanna do is zoom-a-zoom-zoom-zoom & poom-poom if zoom means sleep and poom-poom means wake up feeling refreshed.
— Lindsay Street (@lindsay_fts) May 22, 2014

Batch o’ Hatch: A Shit Ton of Awesome Trailers, Escapism at The Green Dragon Pub, and New Logo!!!

A Shit Ton of Awesome Trailers

We got an awesome amount of new trailers over the past week or so, guys. Star Trek Into Darkness, The Lone Ranger, Man of Steel, and OHMYGODPACIFICRIM!!!! Forget all those other trailers, just watch this one! It’s got everything - Idris Elba, ninja shit, giant monsters, giant robots, ROCKET PUNCH!



What do you think of the trailer for Pacific Rim?

Escapism: The Green Dragon Pub

So Niki over at JoBlo.com recently highlighted this awesome bar in Hobbiton, New Zealand. Yes, you can drink some brew in a magical Hobbit village and don’t you dare pretend you wouldn’t want to.

Who’s buying the first round?

New Logo!!!

You may have noticed our spiffy new logo above, courtesy of Mr. Bill Wiist. Gandalf himself dropped by to mark the occasion. Special thanks to CT from Nerd Lunch for referring us to Bill.

Do you like our new logo? :) Do you hate it? :(

Tweets

I agree, Pax.

Bill Murray back in for Ghostbusters 3?! At this point I'm like, "F**k you. All of you." - whatculture.com/film/bill-murr…
— Paxton Holley (@paxtonholley) December 4, 2012

@TarsTarkasnet, engaged in some #RightQuoteWrongFilm.

"You're a wizard, Harry." - Harry and the Hendersons #rightquotewrongfilm
— HoHoHoTarsTarkas.NET (@TarsTarkasnet) December 5, 2012

Pete from I Love That Film, summing up how I initially felt about the Man of Steel trailer.

Meh of Steel more like it.
— Pete Turner (@ilovethatfilm) December 11, 2012

Dan does nothing to assuage my fears about 48 FPS.

48 frames-per-second just makes everybody in the movie seem like they are way too hyper.
— Dan O'Neill (@DantheMan610) December 12, 2012

Thanks for reading! And now, it's question time again...

The $64,000 Question

 Click the pic and have a Happy Hobbit Weekend!

Batch o’ Hatch: To Kill a Mockingbird, Star Trek Into Darkness, and V/H/S 2

To Kill a Mockingbird

Fathom Events screened To Kill a Mockingbird a few weeks back and, heeding some advice from @20SomeAwesome and @jess_fts, I made a special trip to check it out. I’d never seen it before and catching it on the big screen seemed like a great way to rectify that. I wasn’t disappointed.

Wikipedia

It wasn’t quite what I expected - I thought it would be more straight-up courtroom drama and it had a lot more Scout and Jem than I was expecting (I haven’t read the book) - but the performances and the film as a whole were great.

Anyone love To Kill a Mockingbird? Did anyone else catch the 50th Anniversary Re-release?

Star Trek Into Darkness

Thanks to C.H.U.D., I learned the official synopsis of Star Trek Into Darkness, the highly anticipated (by me, at least) follow-up to 2009’s Star Trek.

In Summer 2013, pioneering director J.J. Abrams will deliver an explosive action thriller that takes “Star Trek Into Darkness.”

When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis.

With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction.

As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.

I’m a little worried that it took four years to get a follow-up to Star Trek. I think two years between films is a nice gap, and with Zachary Quinto recently alluding to the fact that he might not be up for more adventures as Spock after this upcoming film (I guess he’s counting on playing different characters in American Horror Story for the foreseeable future), another four years might be too long of a wait.

Do you like the sound of Star Trek Into Darkness? Do you hope Quinto sticks around for more films?

V/H/S 2

Wait, V/H/S is getting a sequel already?

Both Film School Rejects and Total Film have reported that filmmakers including Gareth Evans, Jason Eisener, and found footage Grand Poobah Eduardo Sanchez have signed on for S-VHS (The hell? Will each sequel’s title advance to a higher medium? We’ll be on Blu Ray in a few years at this rate). Thankfully, no mention of Ti West’s involvement.

Anyone excited for S-VHS? 

Tweets

There was a ton of hullabaloo about this Twinkie business on Twitter, including a tweet from Lucy/@bmovielass. Nice seeing Zombieland references worked in.

Oh well, looks like Woody Harrelson is gonna be pissed #Twinkies
— Lucy (@bmovielass) November 18, 2012

I caught The Relic for the first time recently. I surveyed the Twittercosm about the film and got some good responses. My take? It was a decent monster movie.

@zerbert under-rated monster flick, some scenes shot a little dark but worth a peek 4 sure..
— Socrates Johnson.... (@nowshowinghigh) November 18, 2012

@zerbert If that's the one with Tom Sizemore, then yep. Not in years, though. It was fun at the time.
— George Bell (@CallMeSirPhobos) November 18, 2012

This tweet from Ruth at "....let's be splendid about this..." doesn’t really need any further context.

@zerbert I've seen them all -_-, I regret everything.
— Ruth(@RuthElizabeth_R) November 18, 2012

The $64,000 Question

Thanks for reading! And now, it's question time:

Batch o’ Hatch: Halloween Withdrawals and Dr. Dog at Freebird Live

Halloween Withdrawals

I don’t know about anyone else, but the Post Halloween Blues hit me hard this year. So many horror movies I didn’t get to. So many posts I could have written. The worst is catching up on TV and seeing the Halloween episodes I misse - ModernFamilyhilariousHalloweenepisodeturnitoff!!!

In particular I wanted to watch Basket Case and Saturday the 14th (sorry Pat). I also wanted to watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 with the gang. I watched that on my own and it was nuts. Dennis Hopper - the good guy, mind you - just runs around screaming shit and chainsawing stuff for like, twenty minutes straight.

Wikipedia

 Yes, that's the actual poster and yes, it's a parody of The Breakfast Club poster.

Wikipedia

Are you having Halloween withdrawals? Any movies you didn’t get to this year?

Dr. Dog at Freebird Live

T, Pat, Nick, and myself are catching Dr. Dog at Freebird Live tonight. Between the four of us, this will make 13 times that we’ve seen the boys in concert (hell, this will mark the third time T has seen them this year). I saw them in Atlanta last and I’m looking forward to catching them out at Freebird again.

Anyone a fan of Dr. Dog? Anyone checking them out tonight?

Escapism

Lebowski Fest Chicago is this weekend! In the off chance that we have any readers attending the Fest, do share some photos!

Lebowski Fest

Tweets

For my favorite horror scene back in October, I talked about how Jeepers Creepers is made creepier by the fact that I grew up close to where they filmed it. I asked Twitter if they could relate to this and I got a few great answers:

@zerbert I grew up 5 miles from Burkittsville, MD, def made Blair Witch Project freakier.
— Alex Withrow (@shiftingPersona) October 19, 2012

@zerbert I live near a place in a horror book not film.The book is The Rats by James Herbert.
— steve gonzo reeve (@dicanio72) October 19, 2012

Pax at Cavalcade of Awesome said what we were all thinking about this Disney Star Wars business:

Oh, man, I just realized.No more 20th Century Fox fanfare before a Star Wars film. #GeekSadness
— Paxton Holley (@paxtonholley) November 1, 2012

This was just a delightful tweet by The Cinefamily and it’s making me miss Halloween even more:

S.O.S.! Be a part of something spooktacular: Come by the theater NOW & help set up our Haunted Patio! We've got donuts!! Just come on down!
— The Cinefamily (@cinefamily) October 13, 2012