It’s filmed like a real documentary.  As you’d expect from cavemen, we get lots of expressive grunting and bloodcurdling AAAAAHHHHS!!!  But there is also a love story.  Raquel Welch is from the blonde-haired tribe, where they do arts and crafts.  Needless to say, she falls for a caveman from the much tougher brunette tribe.  And golly are they tough!  A simple fight over scraps of dino-chicken can easily escalate to epic proportions.

Naturally, the narrator is the only one who speaks English (or Spanish, depending on which dubbed version you are watching).  But suddenly he disappears, quite mysteriously, after about ten minutes into the movie, right when he reveals what kind of plot we are dealing with.  Cavemen.  Dinosaurs.  AAAAAHHHH!!!

Thor’s father, King Odin (a.k.a. Anthony Hopkins with an eye patch and a whole warrior’s wardrobe), must now decide who will be the next Thor.  Will it be Thor (played by Chris Hemsworth … see picture on the right)?  Or will it be his angst-ridden brother Loki (played by Tom Hiddleston … picture on bottom-left)?  Soon the fates will be clear:  There can be only one Thor.

P.S.: Thor is now available only on VHS and HiDef Vitrola Player.  Grab a copy today!

P.P.S: Be on the lookout for a special prize guest appearance from cameo film star Stan Lee!

Nick Harvey:  After 30 years as an actor, this was one of the most enjoyable films I’ve done. The whole cast in this film liked each other, had a beer together after filming, and sat around and chewed the fat.  Brad Johnson, why he was never the next John Wayne I’ll never know.  He’s a real cowboy, rancher, and a bloody nice bloke.

Some may remember Brad Johnson as the fighter pilot in Steven Spielberg’s Always.  Copperhead also starred Billy Drago, who has played many sorts of villains, from one of Al Capone’s gangsters in Brian de Palma’s The Untouchables to the magical demon Barbas in the TV series Charmed.

Nick Harvey:  Bill must be one of the all-time Nice Guys from Hollywood.  Off-screen he is like a lost child from the 70′s hippie era and loves a beer and to tell a story.

After Copperhead, Nick Harvey worked again with Billy Drago and director Chapkanov in the film Ghost Town, starring Jessica Rose, Randy Wayne, and Gil Gerard (beloved by sci-fi fans as the hero of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century!)

Nick Harvey:  Todor Chapkanov is one of the great directors of the future and a great guy to work with as the rest of the cast in both the movies are.

[check out this interview with Todor Chapkanov from killerfilm.com]

Nick Harvey:  I was actually cast in the role that Gil Gerard finished up playing in Ghost Town (the Sheriff) … cast in the role by Todor (the director ) and the casting director at BUFO in Bulgaria.  But when the cast was sent to UFO [United Film Organization] in LA for approval, they said I was a comedy actor and this was a straight role. They had spoken to Gil in LA and he had accepted the role.  So I went to the next character (the Mayor).

I was a bit discerned about me being typecast as a comedy actor, as I’ve played mostly dramatic characters in my career.  But at least I’d been noticed as “something” hahaha by the powers that be in LA and was chuffed that I’d been knocked out of a role by Gil Gerard.  And I still had a job.

Gil was also a great guy to work with and we linked up off-screen as well for dinner.  As the studio was busy, I took my car and we went to the ancient city of Plovdiv here in Bulgaria for the day to show him some history of the country, which he was very interested in.

All the cast of Ghost Town got on well.  As it was a movie that crossed 2 time zones, I didn’t meet or work much with Randy Wayne or Jessica Rose.  But with Billy Drago back in the cast was also a lot of fun.

Nasko Srebrev [who played in both Ghost Town and Copperhead among many other films] is a great actor and friend as well.  He lives here in Sofia, so we meet up from time to time anyway.  The actors of his genre here, Nasko, George Zlatarev, and Vlado Mihailov, are all friends and we all meet up from time to time for a gossip and bitch over a beer.

Now we come to the final stretch of the interview, regarding Nick Harvey’s work in War, Inc.  We also cover his earliest acting experiences, his work beyond film, and some final bits of advice.

Nick Harvey: War, Inc. was a step up in pace from the UFO productions.  I had a small speaking role in it and 3 days work.  I met all the cast including the unstoppable John Cusack.  He’s a work dynamo from when he hits the set of a morning to when he wraps.

I got a great pic taken with Sir Ben Kingsley and Marisa Tomei.  My scenes in the movie were with Marisa Tomei, John Cusack and Ben Kingsley, so that was lucky for me…

In my scene, I was an interfaith clergyman in the final fight scene where Marisa is in a karate fight with the villain, and it involved her doing a lot of high karate kicks right in from of me.  Well I must say, the sights made my day, and how the costume people forgot to tell her to wear sports knickers in the scene, instead of a G-string, I’ll never know, but be eternally grateful hahahaha.

Before War, Inc. came along, what were some of your earliest experiences as an actor?

Nick Harvey:   After I left RADA [Royal Academy of Dramatic Art], I worked in West Country repertory in England (stage) and the first acting role I had was as the Beer Seller in “The Merchant of Venice”, then “Day of the Fools” with Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson.  My first TV acting experience was in Austraila as an extra in the Grundy Organisation and Crawford soaps… Cell Block 13… and The Sullivans… Spy Force etc…  I was also a male model who did a lot of commercials.

Has your approach to acting changed since then?

Nick Harvey:  I hope the only way my approach has changed is that I’ve learned more about the application of the craft, from Stage to TV to Film and probably don’t take the knocks we all get in the industry seriously anymore.

Whether in film or outside the world of film, what other projects are you working on?

At present I’m not working on any film projects.  I finished a music project with Terry Douglas, a CD.  It’s called Broken Hearted Lover Man, no real life reference there.

As my day job, I’m working in Africa as the Director of Mining Operations and Project Manager for (Union Gold WA) finding, identifying and developing Gold and Diamond mines. Exciting huh!! and a lot more money than acting.

As a final question, what would your advice be for beginning actors and filmmakers?

Nick Harvey:  Advice to filmmakers … get a good script, good director, and plenty of money hahaha….

For actors … learn your craft well.  Take any work available that involves any type of acting, because you learn and develop from everything you do.  In the beginning, don’t rush your career, and don’t take roles that are outside your ability.

Do a course in TV and film, learn to work to a camera properly.  Rule is, on stage, move your body.  TV… move your head.  Film… move your eyes.

Learn to be a professional from the very beginning.  Be where you are asked at the time you are asked to be there … or 1 minute earlier. Study the industry itself.  Learn how a movie is made, so you totally understand what and why everyone on the set is doing what they are doing. Respect them all.  Learn something from every actor you work with.  And finally, take the industry you are working in seriously … not yourself.

Well, that concludes this interview.  Click here for an illustrated review on the movie Copperhead (2008):

Copperhead
Cowboys battle copperhead swarm.

Of course, with this much going on, trouble will inevitably ensue for three Phantasm sequels.

To find out more, watch this epic movie trailer, or check out these sensible reviews with two very different points of view:

http://www.fight-evil.com/reviews/selector.php?id=182637

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3BF8d1nOMc&feature=player_embedded

*spoiler alert*

Link wins, of course. And in the name of his picturesque homeland of Hyrule (and in honor of the lovely Princess Zelda who had sent him on this quest in the first place) he reclaims what Ganon had stolen:

The Triforce … a trio of triangular power-tablets which have a rightful place back at Hyrule Castle … spreading extreme peace and harmony throughout the land.

And Link goes down in Hyrulian history as a dependable hero.

Thus concludes this Legend of Zelda Movie Trilogy.

Find out where it all began:

Legend of Zelda: The Motion Picture
The hero gets all the glory.

Legend of Zelda: Part Two
Villain Strikes Back

In Hammer of the Gods, Home Improvement’s Zachery Ty Bryan, stars as Thor, the God of Thunder.  Only he has amnesia.  To his Viking buddies, he is just an ordinary guy who happens to have the name Thor. You see, without his famous hammer, he can’t remember who he is.  And he’s pretty powerless, too, as we see here in this film clip:

The legendary hammer is, in fact, locked away in a temple on a mountaintop, guarded by a couple of unlikely villains:

1) a tribe of mostly hairless werewolves (mainly covered in black paint to cut back on hair effects, which can be quite costly on movie productions)

2) a traitorous Viking in Thor’s midst (but Thor saw it coming, especially after they waved swords at each other, menacingly, from opposing cliffsides).

Harrowing? Yes! Do we deserve more? Yes, as long as Thor himself is up to it, which I am sure he is.

Even the word “muggle” has been transformed. Search wikipedia and you’ll find a whole history of muggle usages (going back as far as 1854, with Alice in Wonderland‘s creator Lewis Carroll). Of course, according to several online sources, we all know now that muggles are actually non-magical people that never get invited into Harry Potter’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

But there is one guy that gets overlooked. Frank M. Robinson … the writer/actor who played a small role in Sean Penn’s Milk movie. Yes, that Frank M. Robinson.

Well, on January 16, 1957, legendary radio show X Minus One aired a play based on Frank’s story The Girls from Earth. It was just another old fashioned Martian romance … except for two startling words:

Muggle Juice.

It’s the beverage of choice on Mars. Creative, inventive, almost magical.

The biggest downside for fans of Muggle Juice?

Realizing that we non-magicals are still—and will forever be—trapped by Rowling’s definitive definition of the word muggle.

So … resistance is futile. Long live the legacy.

***

For the text version of the Robinson’s Muggle story, click here.

For the actual radio broadcast, click here.

Marvel Comics guru Stan Lee brings us Lightspeed—the next generation in middle-aged superheroing!

Lightspeed’s Origin:

Daniel Leight was just an ordinary 50-something year old commando in the elite task force known as The Ghost Squad. In addition to their guns and ski masks, they have the latest in wrist-activated walky-talkies. Plus, Lee Majors (the Six Million Dollar Man!!) is their leader. And on Lee Majors’ desk there is a picture of his most special commando Daniel Leight.

Life was good … until, somehow, Daniel gets injured on the job.

An experimental radiation treatment cures him … but it also gives him light speed power. He runs real fast. To prevent getting windburn, he wears a ski outfit. To keep his elderly heart from exploding, he drinks cool-blue adrenaline juice.

Lightspeed’s Archenemy Python:

Let’s just say that he’s a failed scientist. His reptilian experiments went up in smoke, mutating him into the monster we see today. With no job, no girlfriend, and no more government funding, Python goes on a rampage of pure jealousy, ransacking the richest, most successful science labs.

But don’t worry. There’s no need to save the day, not if Lightspeed is on the way!

(Sorry for the lengthy review. I’ll make the rest of it so fast you won’t even see it happen!)

Ever since celebrities J-Lo, John Voight, and Ice Cube blew up theaters with 1997′s Anaconda, producers have wondered, “How can we turn this thing into a trilogy?”

Answer: Get more celebrities!

But after seeing the first Anaconda, celebrities weren’t convinced. After all, the snake was dead. How could there be another snake? It just wouldn’t make sense.

So, produces made an unofficial sequel entitled Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid without the help of any celebrities.

After that, the celebrities came back in pairs. David Hasselhoff and John Rhys-Davies were on board to round off the final two movies, both of which were now officially numerically entitled  . . .  Anaconda 3 and 4.

So, if we exclude Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid as a kind of booby trap made to re-attract celebrities, Anaconda 1, 3, and 4 will altogether become the trickiest trilogy ever!

[Pictured here is John Rhys-Davies, the bearded buddy Sala from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.  He played in Anaconda 3 and 4, as a millionaire who spends his time financing the genetic alteration of anacondas … and also reading silently from big thick books (the dictionary?) while standing at a podium.

Thus begins this mind-blender of a movie known as Termination Point.

Actor Lou Diamond Phillips stars as a cutting-edge scientist. Proving his brilliance as a scientist, he wears a studious-looking beard, a pair of glasses … and he builds a teleportation machine. With it he can zip anywhere, anytime, and to any point in time. All he has to do is power up his machine with neon light bulbs and type in some coordinates on his cell-phone and—zip! Through a wormhole he goes!

Unfortunately, teleportation has a few side-effects.

1) A mismatching of people, places and things from alternate universes.

2) A planet-eating vortex that seems to enjoy floating in the sky, zapping stuff into oblivion. Mainly it attacks buildings. But it’ll also go after people if they try running away. And it’ll keep on zapping until there’s nothing left. (Hence the title Termination Point, that theoretical point at which we all meet some sort of universal termination.)

3) Rogue agents. They’ll stop at nothing to get their hands on Lou Diamond’s technology. (*hint, hint* gunfights galore!)

To get away from it all, Lou somehow bypasses airport security, smuggling his teleportation time machine onto Sky Wing Airlines, on a flight to Mexico.

But will he escape his problems?

Before seeing this movie, I highly recommend re-reading this review to find out what could possibly happen next!