Munn’s Chun Li sells panties

I’ve been a fan of Olivia Munn for quite some time. Not only is she sexy and funny, but I enjoy the fact that she doesn’t take herself seriously. In Olivia’s latest caper, she cosplays superbly as Street Fighter’s Chun Li while hawking kung-fu resistant panties. And unlike Kristen Kreuk, star of the debacle that is the latest Street Fighter film, Olivia actually has the thighs to pull off the role convincingly (even if she’s just doing it for laughs). Read more

Critics bash Street Fighter movie

Initial reviews of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li have come out, and as expected, they are scathing. It’s understandable why the film producers decided not to pre screen this movie for critics. The reviews are probably what they expected: universally bad. Read more

No Street Fighter for critics

Ha! I knew it. According to Variety, film critics will not get an advance screening of  Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li.. That’s usually not a good sign for a film, and pretty much indicates that the production company expects that critics will be unkind to the film. It’s not as if a lot of people didn’t see this coming. Read more

Is Hollywood desperate?

I’m a huge science fiction and fantasy fan (like this blog isn’t a dead giveaway), so when I see an announcement for a new movie that is based on a video game, cartoon or comic book, you can practically consider me a part of the captive audience. It won’t take a lot of convincing to get me to the theater as long as the movie is halfway good.

But here’s the thing, even a fanboy like me is appalled at some of the drek that Hollywood would like to be slinging at us. I’ve already given my thoughts here about what I think of the upcoming GI Joe and Street Fighter movies.  I have little doubt they’re both going to be awful. Throw onto that pile the upcoming Prince of Persia film starring Jake Gyllenhaal and the Dragonball live action film. Yep, I think they’re going to be terrible too. Read more

Chun-Li becomes gritty

I don’t think this will work. Honestly, Kristen Kreuk is probably a fine actress (dunno, never watched more than a couple of episodes of Smallville), but a believable martial artist, she is most definitively not. I’m sure her casting has been chewed on and spat out in the blogosphere many a times already. I won’t make the same points or rehash the same arguments. Mostly people think that Ms. Kreuk’s casting as Chun Li is an epic fail of a decision. I pretty much agree on that point.

No, my issue today is really more about Hollywood’s current fascination with grittiness. Is it my imagination or is every movie now just more gritty? It seems that Hollywood’s cinematographers are enamored with gray, black and brown. Every hero (and heroine) has to be covered with sweat, dirt and blood, and if they look like they just came back from working 14 hours at a steel mill, so much the better. Everyone’s wearing black or earth tones. All the cities look like an industrialized mass of steel pipes; dirty sewer grates with smoke coming out of them; streets with puddles, rats and street people huddled around garbage can fires. Read more