Yeah, this is looking pretty good. Stylish, brutal, and exciting — just what James Bond should be. I don’t expect the movie to end anywhere near where the book does,…
Yeah, this is looking pretty good. Stylish, brutal, and exciting — just what James Bond should be. I don’t expect the movie to end anywhere near where the book does, but … yeah, pretty good looking.
(via Randy)
Fantastic Four isn’t going to win any awards for great literature, it’s a far, far less objectionable flick than I’d feared. I don’t regret at all having watched it for…
Fantastic Four isn’t going to win any awards for great literature, it’s a far, far less objectionable flick than I’d feared. I don’t regret at all having watched it for free on HBO in my hotel room.
So, a potpourri of links: A new faster search tool for MT blogs. An Indian anthem that’s causing more of a ruckus than the Pledge of Allegiance is here. Countering…
So, a potpourri of links:
And just to add a bit more surreality …
Many of the harsh interrogation techniques repudiated by the Pentagon on Wednesday would be made lawful by legislation put forward the same day by the Bush administration. And the courts would be forbidden from intervening.
Which is about all one needs to know to pas judgment on that legislation, you ask me.
Wow. Came late to this particular bit of news. Tim Burton will be doing a big screen adaptation of Sweeney Todd … with … Johnny Depp in the lead…
Wow. Came late to this particular bit of news. Tim Burton will be doing a big screen adaptation of Sweeney Todd … with … Johnny Depp in the lead role?
Um …
Burton’s convinced Depp can do it. Stephen Sondheim isn’t, yet.
(And as a blast from the past, consider the Which Sweeney Todd Character are You? quiz. Forgive the egregious typos.)
Hung around in the morning. I slept a bit in. Mom and Kitten played Monopoly. Stuff like that. Got to see the new Testermobile. Very nice. Starting to get the…
Hung around in the morning. I slept a bit in. Mom and Kitten played Monopoly. Stuff like that.
Got to see the new Testermobile. Very nice. Starting to get the yen for our next car purchase (though it likely will be a lot bigger vehicle).
The ‘rents took Katherine to Zoom while we did the Shadow Shard #4 TF in CoH — we were a lot more successful a lot faster than expected, so we had time to run around and just do some normal play while Mom and Dad kept the girl amused elsewhere.
For the evening, we BBQed a nice steak dinner, served up with Margie Potatoes, salad, and a nicely aged Peach Canyon Cab Franc.
Then, once Kitten was down, everyone got to watch Dave’s blood pressure spike out the top of his skull trying to get his Cotton Patch Gospel DVDs to play for more than 5-10 minutes at a time. To say it was frustrating would describe the press coverage of the JonBenet Ramsey stuff as “interested.” I need (a) a new receiver (new DVD player, actually; the player in this receiver is the sux), and (b) a better set of discs.
And then to bed. Mercifully.
Robot (or robot-like) women. Why are they so popular in fiction? Fembots were a pop-culture staple long before Austin Powers battled them—witness the popularity of The Bionic Woman, The Stepford…
Robot (or robot-like) women. Why are they so popular in fiction?
Fembots were a pop-culture staple long before Austin Powers battled them—witness the popularity of The Bionic Woman, The Stepford Wives and Blade Runner. But what is it about curvaceous cyborgs that stirs the imagination? To some, fembots represent the perfect male fantasy: They’re sexy and submissive and have more techie features than the Xbox 360. But they also have a dangerous side that can reduce walls to rubble and make an army retreat. Perhaps the
fembot’s allure resides in her ability to walk the line between total obedience and unfathomable power.Feminist science-fiction writer Amy Thomson, author of robot-comes-of-age novel Virtual Girl, suggests that the fembot myth is attractive to men because it deals with “a woman you create and control.” But tech journalist Daniel Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising, argues that fictional fembots have hardly been portrayed as controllable—in fact, he claims, they’re often presented as the most dangerous robots of all, because feelings of attraction
to them could leave their victims vulnerable to attack. “A sexy robot that’s aggressive could be a wolf in rubberized skin,” he says.
There’s a gallery of “favorites” — from Weird Science, Metropolis, Blade Runner, S1m0ne, The Stepford Wives, Battlestar Galactica, The Bionic Woman*, A.I., and Austin Powers,
*The BW reference here is evidently not to Jaime Sommers, a cyborg, but to the full-blown fembot opponents she repeatedly fought.
I can’t tell in this release about the next Indiana Jones flick — tentatively scheduled for shooting in 2007, for release in 2008 — if George Lucas is being too…
I can’t tell in this release about the next Indiana Jones flick — tentatively scheduled for shooting in 2007, for release in 2008 — if George Lucas is being too coy for coherence, or has finally slipped a cog.
As for the story? “We’re basically going to do The Phantom Menace,” Lucas said cryptically, referring to Star Wars: Episode I.
Okay, those are possibly the most disheartening words anyone could hear …
“People’s expectations are way higher than you can deliver. You could just get killed for the whole thing. … We would do it for fun and just take the hit with the critics and the fans. … But nobody wants to get into it unless they are really happy with it.”
Lucas added: “The ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation has freed up an idea for a plot that was originally deemed too incendiary. I discovered a McGuffin. … I told the guys about it, and they were a little dubious about it, but it’s the best one we’ve ever found. … Unfortunately, it was a little too ‘connected’ for the others. They were afraid of what the critics would think. They said, ‘Can’t we do it with a different McGuffin? Can’t we do this?’ and I said no. So we pottered around with that
for a couple of years. And then Harrison really wanted to do it, and Steve said ‘OK.’ I said, ‘We’ll have to go back to that original McGuffin and take out the offending parts of it, and we’ll still use that area of the supernatural to deal with it.'”
Well, whatever the hell that means.
At least Spielberg is still scheduled to direct.
Very cool split-screen comparison between the original 1963 Twilight Zone episode, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” and the 1983 remake in Twilight Zone: The Movie (set to the Pop Will…
Very cool split-screen comparison between the original 1963 Twilight Zone episode, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” and the 1983 remake in Twilight Zone: The Movie (set to the Pop Will Eat Itself tune of the same name).
Remarkably enough, William Shatner (in the original) chews far less scenery than his movie counterpart (John Lithgow).
(via loresjoberg)
For those of you who’ve never heard of the Wilhelm Scream, read here. For those of you who’ve heard of it, but never actually heard it, view here. (via Les)…
Evidently there’s a new version — not just a “director’s cut,” but an “original director’s version” — of Superman II being planned for a release for the holiday season…
Evidently there’s a new version — not just a “director’s cut,” but an “original director’s version” — of Superman II being planned for a release for the holiday season this year. It’s based on Richard Donner’s original work on the movie, prior to his being canned by the Salkinds and replaced by Richard
Lester, which (so it’s said) not only led to a near-revolt by the actors (Hackman refused to film any more) but to a movie with a much more humorous (even camp) tone to it.
Interesting.
(via kottke)
It’s Woot-astic! Joe Straczynski, at the San Diego Comic-Con, announced all sorts of stuff. A correspondent to AICN recorded the following most significant item (to my mind): direct-to-DVD B5 releases called…
It’s Woot-astic!
Joe Straczynski, at the San Diego Comic-Con, announced all sorts of stuff. A correspondent to AICN recorded the following most significant item (to my mind): direct-to-DVD B5 releases called Babylon 5: The Lost Tales.
The biggest announcement I’ll paraphrase: Every 6 months, I get together with WB to discuss what to do something with B5. The DVD sales have raised over 500 million in revenue. Now, I produced B5s 110 episodes at about 90 million dollars. Somehow, B5 is still 50 million in the red. Every time I mention that to WB they say We made a good deal, huh? Anyway, they asked if I wanted to do a feature film but I declined mainly because I can’t yet picture structuring a B5 movie as long as [Andreas Katsulas] and [Richard
Biggs] insist on staying dead. Maybe in a year or two I’ll be able to but right now I can’t do something big and those two roles will NOT be recast.So I thought about it, and I suggested a bunch of short films. Little mini-movies or an anthology show set in the Babylon 5 universe. I pick a character and develop an hour-long story around that character. Stories that I wanted to tell during the B5 series but never had the chance to develop. They said, Okay. I said I wanted complete creative control. Do not change my words that I write, and I want that in writing. They said, Okay. And I want to direct. They said, Okay.
This project was green lit less than two weeks ago. Its going to happen. Production starts in September in Vancouver, Canada. Post-production will occur from October to February with a release of the first three anthologies in the second quarter of 2007.
On the B5 Mailing List, Joe added this:
[W]e’re looking at 3 half-hour episodes/stories for the first DVD, with additional features and the like in the other half hour. Each story will be worked around a given established character, the specifics of which are still TBD contingent upon availabilities and other issues.
We have a budget, we’re greenlit, we’re going.
As for what prompted the interest now at WB…it’s only recently that they’ve finally run through all 5 seasons, which for many years now has been a constant source of revenue, and I think they would love to have something to continue to with. The recent news re: Changeling probably didn’t hurt, but the deal was actually being negotiated long before there *was* a feature film deal with Imagine. As I recall, we finalized the deal right around the time that the Imagine news was announced.
It was a rather extraordinary 24 hours.
All sorts of other stuff announced by JMS, too:
Triffic stuff. I think there’s a lot of room for anthological tales of the B5 universe — a whole post-Season 5 world, at the very least (which would deal with several years having passed for the actors, too). While many other TV SF shows have grabbed onto my heart since B5 went off the air — Farscape, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who — Joe’s show holds a very special place for me. Here’s hoping it’s a success.
(via Les)
Darth Vader (from Ep. 4), remixed with other James Earl Jones voice tracks. Fun….
Darth Vader (from Ep. 4), remixed with other James Earl Jones voice tracks. Fun.
Movie posters for US/International releases, as designed in Poland. While most movie posters in the United States pretty much showcase the standard corporate style imagery to hawk the film, the…
Movie posters for US/International releases, as designed in Poland.
While most movie posters in the United States pretty much showcase the standard corporate style imagery to hawk the film, the fine folks in Poland have a brilliant dramatic license when marketing Hollywood’s finest in their country, resulting in some of the most brilliantly surreal and amazing pieces of movie artwork ever created. Some of them are obvious, some seem to be crazy nonsequiters that have nothing to do with the original picture, while others seem to change the focus of the movie altogether. Weekend
At Bernies now looks more like a horror film, and Polish poster for The Terror of Mechagodzilla looks as if it was animated by the folks that made Yellow Submarine.
Really neat. It makes you wonder how a US movie would do if they used the Polish art.
Though I have to wonder now — most (all?) of the movies up there are a good decade or more old. I can’t imagine that Hollywood would approve of this going “off-message” today, which makes me wonder if this is all a thing of the past.
I have no idea of the genesis of these folk-art Russian artistic re-interpretations of American (?) movies, but they are as charming as they are quirkily eerie. (via kottke)…
I have no idea of the genesis of these folk-art Russian artistic re-interpretations of American (?) movies, but they are as charming as they are quirkily eerie.
(via kottke)
There is, it is claimed, an early version of the Serenity script up for grabs on eBay; it’s an earlier “kitchen sink” version, where Joss was unimpeded by thinks like,…
There is, it is claimed, an early version of the Serenity script up for grabs on eBay; it’s an earlier “kitchen sink” version, where Joss was unimpeded by thinks like, oh, budget and time and the laws of physics.
The referenced post gives a summary of the changes from the filmed version. By and large, the filmed version is darker and tighter and arguably better — but given that one of the joys of the show (and Joss’ writing) is his dialog, there’s all sorts of nice throw-away goodness that got, well, thrown away. And (sad glee) Book is still part of the crew in this draft.
As the poster puts it:
This would have made a really good Firefly movie. It wouldn’t have been Serenity.
Here’s hoping that it gets published “for free” someday.
(via Whedonesque)
I’m sure someone out there will take this seriously….
I’m sure someone out there will take this seriously.
Notstarring.com is a site dedicated to stars who didn’t get (or take) roles on movies. The mind reels (so to speak) at some of the items from their Top 25…
Notstarring.com is a site dedicated to stars who didn’t get (or take) roles on movies. The mind reels (so to speak) at some of the items from their Top 25 List … John Denver as the lead in An Officer and a Gentleman? Will Smith starring in The Matrix? Sean Connery as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings?
It does make you wonder. If there’s ever an Alternative Timeline Viewer, some of these could be pretty interesting … and others just scary.
(via B&P)
Went tonight with Doyce, Kate, Lee, De, and Stan … There’s nothing about X3 that a movie or two more wouldn’t have solved. The flick’s biggest problem is about five…
Went tonight with Doyce, Kate, Lee, De, and Stan …
There’s nothing about X3 that a movie or two more wouldn’t have solved. The flick’s biggest problem is about five too many plotlines, the result of which is that nothing really gets resolved satisfactorally, just proceeded beyond.
The movie does, in fact, borrow from many X-plots from over the years, including (depending on who you talk to) a healthy chunk of Joss Whedon’s recent “Cure” storyline, but also ….
Well, let me drop below the fold for possible spoilers. As a quick, unspoilered summary, though, let me say that it’s a decent enough action flick, a scosh better than the first, a scosh less coherent than the second.
Oh, and be sure and sit through the credits.
If MST3K did a number on Serenity. RIVER: [on playback] Miranda. MAL: Miranda. TOM: Miranda. CROW: Miranda. MIKE: That explains everything. Very nice. Posted by RoboDave (via Doyce)…
If MST3K did a number on Serenity.
RIVER: [on playback] Miranda.
MAL: Miranda.
TOM: Miranda.
CROW: Miranda.
MIKE: That explains everything.
Very nice.
Posted by RoboDave
(via Doyce)
Real Live Preacher weighs in, wisely, on the whole kerfuffle. First, when will religious groups finally figure out that publicly denouncing a book or a movie is the surest way…
Real Live Preacher weighs in, wisely, on the whole kerfuffle.
First, when will religious groups finally figure out that publicly denouncing a book or a movie is the surest way to guarantee its success? Religious people never seem to understand that the world is filled with people who do the exact opposite of whatever they suggest. Hell, I’m one of those people myself. If I hear that church people hate a movie, I’m in line for tickets on opening day. Has the Church forgotten Salman Rushdie? Would any of us know that name if he hadn’t been condemned by the Muslims? Has the Church forgotten Martin Scorcese’s movie, “The Last Temptation of Christ?” In that case, the Church in America single-handedly turned a mediocre movie into a blockbuster hit.
Nice move Church. Perhaps you should have added some basic chess lessons to your seminary curriculum.
But whatever. If the Church wants to make a lot of money for Dan Brown and Ron Howard, what do I care? Both the book and the movie will be off the radar in a few months. Nothing will have changed.
To which I’ll add, if someone’s faith is so weak that reading a popular paperback or seeing a movie is going to crush it and send someone careening away from the church, it’s probably not something that could have been saved (so to speak) anyway.
Christianity is a major, world-wide religion. It is 2000 years old and is the largest common expression of spirituality in the history of humanity. Does the Christian Church really need to worry about a book and a movie? These things are here today and gone tomorrow, almost literally. The Christian Church has withstood the Roman Empire, medieval Christianity, and the Age of Enlightenment. Somehow the Church even manages to survive its most dangerous challenge – scandal, decadence, and corruption within its ranks. Will Dan Brown now topple us?
[…] The best and only appropriate response for the Church is to be about the business of the Church. Don’t we have, I don’t know, CHURCH things to be doing? Or even better, human things to be doing? If our love of humanity was as radical as Jesus called it to be, then we would never have to say a word.
In my mind, every time the Church responds to something like this with angry words, it is a bold indictment of our lack of active love, and therefore lack of relevance in this world.
Amen, Reverend.
A lot of church leaders have condemned the movie (and the book), insisting that it expresses disrespect for the church, for God, and for believers. They miss the point that respect is earned, not secured in court. It will exist only if you actually are respectable. What these folks want is not respect, but obedience, obeisance, and homage — which are very different things altogether.