Crowdfunding was made for guys like Alex Cox. Similar to Ralph Bakshi, whose successfully Kickstarter-ed project we profiled recently, The Sid and Nancy and Repo Man director is a cult filmmaker who doesn’t fit in Hollywood and who therefore has had a hard time getting his movies off the ground. Even when working with his old titles, as he did with the sorta-sequel Repo Chick and the re-cut release of Straight to Hell (called Straight to Hell Returns), he’s had trouble getting notice. Hopefully he’s able to turn things around with Bill, the Galactic Hero, a low-budget sci-fi comedy adapted from the same-titled novel by Harry Harrison (who wrote the basis of Soylent Green – the novel “Make Room! Make Room!” — and co-wrote the script for Bill with Cox before his death last August). Cox has launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the movie at $100,000, and after a week he’s already halfway there.

Citizens, prepare yourselves for an all new onset of bug attacks. This is not a drill. After three feature films, it turns out there is still more violent man-on-insect combat to explore within the Starship Troopers universe. An all new animated feature, Starship Troopers: Invasion, enjoyed its North American premiere at this year’s Fantasia Film Fest. A full review is brewing, but in the meantime, who better to introduce the movie and talk about the inner workings of this fourth installment of the franchise than Johnny Rico himself, Casper Van Dien. Though not lending his voice to the antecedent Rico in ST:I, Van Dien did serve as a producer on the film. His intro was certainly lively and drew raucous reactions from Starship Trooper fans. Would you like to know more? Check out the video below:

Through his work on things like the first two Star Wars films, Temple of Doom, and the Robocop series, Phil Tippett has established himself as something of a legend in the world of creature effects, puppeteering, and stop-motion animation. One thing he was never able to do, however, was create his own animated short. He tried, earlier in his career, to put together a project called Mad God, which he describes as being, “an experimental, hand-made, animated film, set in a Miltonesque world of monsters, mad scientists, and war pigs.” Unfortunately for fans of interesting and weird animated things, it never quite got finished. As Tippett recently explained to Indiewire, “I started shooting on 35mm film way back in the early 90s and then the project kind of fell into disrepair when the digital age hit. So I had to recalculate and spend a lot of time re-engineering our business from photographic to digital, so Mad God kind of went on hold.”

It’s taken 33 Commentary Commentaries, 33 different movies we’ve heard all kinds of people from directors to actors to whatever was going on with Cannibal: The Musical, but we’ve finally gotten to AH-NOLD. That’s right. This week we’re looking into Total Recall, that mind-melting actioner from 1990 wherein Arnold Schwarzenegger uses a completely innocent bystander as a human shield, loses his memory, and saves just about every mutant living on Mars. He doesn’t save the girl with three breasts, though. That probably deserves a spoiler alert. But it’s time to hear what Schwarzenegger and director Paul Verhoeven have to say about the whole experience. With the remake headed our way this Summer, we felt it was time to find out everything we could about this modern classic. Maybe this time next year we’ll have a Total Recall 2012 commentary from Colin Farrell and Len Wiseman. Wiseman has already offered a commentary for his film’s trailer, but there’s no way in the world it’s going to be as entertaining as listening to Verhoeven and Schwarzenegger. No way. Let’s get our asses to Mars, shall we?

Back in the late 90s, expert director of schlock Paul Verhoeven took a stab at adapting one of legendary sci-fi novelist Robert Heinlein’s most popular stories, “Starship Troopers”, and the results were something that resembled Heinlein’s far-looking, satirical tale less than it did a B-level genre piece that was far more…well, schlocky. Starship Troopers was all about bad acting, big explosions, disgusting amounts of bug goop, and exploitative co-ed naked shower scenes. It may not have been an adaptation with a tone that was true to its source material, but it had its own kind of charm, you know? And since it was just made in the 90s, and it’s got special effects that actually hold up pretty well, you wouldn’t think there would be any need to revisit the material again. But you would be wrong. Or at least producer Neal Moritz thinks you’re wrong. You may have heard Moritz’s name before, he’s the Sony Pictures bigwig responsible for another recent remake; the upcoming and Colin Farrell-starring Total Recall. The similarities between these two projects are endless. The original Total Recall was also a Paul Verhoeven movie, it was also (very loosely) adapted from a story by a legendary science fiction writer (Philip K. Dick), and it was also something that nobody really thought needed to be remade. That film hasn’t hit theaters yet or anything, but Moritz must be really happy with what he’s seen of it, because with this new take on Starship Troopers he’s pretty clearly

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news column that has no problem closing out another fine week of coverage. Why? Because it’s got a hot and heavy weekend planned with its new girlfriend, Siri. It even used her to book a quality hotel, make restaurant reservations and order adult party props. You know, just in case she’s into that sort of thing. We open this fine, crisp Friday evening with a shot of Ecto-1, the vehicle driven by everyone’s favorite guys to call if you is, in fact, afraid of some ghosts. It was captured by our friends at Primer Magazine at the Arclight in Los Angeles in celebration of Ghostbusters returning to theaters. It’s one of four original production cars used in the films, fully restored to its former glory. And glorious, it is.

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; if this is your first time, you have to fight. Despair all ye who accidentally stumbled upon this column while searching for information on junk bonds, food poisoning, and/or Cinema Paradiso. Instead you found the weekly internet column that celebrates the cheesiest, the corniest, and the hammiest that Hollywood has to offer. Every Friday I serve up a not-so-great movie and pick apart its faults until only the greasy carcass remains. But then I fashion that carcass into an unsightly headdress which I then don as an embarrassing testament to my love for said movie. As if this weren’t obnoxious enough, I will then pair the film with an appropriately terrible-for-you snack that will wreak havoc upon your insides as the movie cannibalizes your IQ. This week’s treat: Starship Troopers

Your daily recommended allowance of random movie stuff, stories that fell through the cracks, and news you can’t use.

You’ve probably noticed a trend in past Daily Diversions in that they’re usually entertaining videos designed to be watched, enjoyed, and then immediately forgotten. Well that changes today. You’ll still watch it. You’ll still enjoy it. But you’ll carry it’s message with you forever as you march onto the battlefield, gun in hand, and take aim…