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Wishful Casting
The UK press is aflutter with a 007 casting report today, but seeing as the original source is UK's Rupert Murdoch-owned The Sun, the worst source for sensationalized Bond rumormongering, you may want to wait until this gets confirmed in a press release before believing it -- but they're saying Barbara Broccoli, producer behind the Bond films these days, has offered Layer Cake's Daniel Craig the role of 007. Bond fan page MI6 seems to have a level-headed analysis of the press's latest maneuvering. UPDATE: Yeah, it was a nice rumor, but Craig's already denied it. We now return you to your much-less-likely-to-be-retracted newz.
anyhow -- if you haven't seen layer cake yet, find a way. (and after you've seen it, let me know if you agree that craig is the closest thing to a british steve mcqueen you'v ever seen.) it's probably the best thing i've seen so far this year. a throwaback to 60s/70s brit gangster dramas, with post lock-stock sensibilities. also note that the director, matthew vaughn, produced guy ritchie's stuff, produced neil gaiman's "short film about john bolton" as well as owns the options to "stardust," and is slated to direct x-men 3 (which i'm suddenly feeling a lot better about).
posted by Gray @ 01:37 PM CT [Link]
Protorobotech
It's a long way off from the AT-ST. But for a one-man side project to develop a bipedal "walker" mech, it doesn't suck. The movie gives you a real idea of its walking -- er, shuffling ability (not to mention its topheaviness); the cockpit p.o.v. at the end is fun.
posted by Gray @ 02:41 PM CT [Link]
Storyboards
Most reviews I've read of Sin City have picked up on the fact that it duplicates the graphic novels nearly shot-for-shot (in fact an interview with one of the production artists reveals that they were basically handed copies of the comics in place of storyboards). Now, here's a side-by-side (well, above-and-below) comparison of a bunch of scenes from the comics and the movie. Note that there are separate pages for the different Sin City stories.
Saw the movie last night: overall impression, Kick Ass. Also: Don't take the kiddies or the squeamish.
posted by Sean @ 11:13 AM CT [Link]
Who Did Whaaa--?!?
Christopher Eccleston has already quit the new Dr. Who series after only the first of his episodes has aired -- 10 million viewers caught the pilot in the UK and Eccleston's afraid of being typecast.
posted by Gray @ 11:28 AM CT [Link]
Ride a riot
Looking like a cross between Dr. Seuss and The Road Warrior, the RIOT Wheel is a single-wheel vehicle, the most recent version using an electric engine. Practicality be damned, and you look a lot less dorky than if you were riding a Segway.
posted by Sean @ 04:49 PM CT [Link]
Silly IP wars
Sony has been ordered to stop selling all Playstations and Playstation 2s in the US following a verdict of copyright infringement.
posted by Sean @ 10:38 AM CT [Link]
Primates
Via Screenhead, some linx to the new Gorillaz video from their forthcoming album. Sadly, the quality of the videos is loooow.
posted by Sean @ 10:07 AM CT [Link]
The Clone Opera Wars
Russian critics are going ballistic over the pending opening of a new opera at the Bolshoi. They're upset that a particular Russian writer is being allowed to present his work at a such a prestigious theatre. Apparently, the guy specializes in creative works depicting debauchery amongst cloned historical figures.
talk about your niche genres... sci-fi-political slashfic? "hey boris, i had this great idea for a story last night while blitzed on stoli -- get this, it's the near future, and there are these clones of stalin and khrushchev, right? and then they get it on, see? but wait, then it gets even better..."
UPDATE: Ah, this is all over the place now. CNN has a better writeup...
posted by Gray @ 11:53 AM CT [Link]
Action Item Figures
The next best thing to having an Office Space toy line...
amusing in a droll sort of way, but i may not add these to my desk's collection of distractions for the same reason i don't go out of my way to read dilbert -- you have to work to find the stuff funny when you're living the absurdity. dilbert is more of a tragicomic strip to me these days. it's a good sanity check now and again, though, to make sure you can still laugh.
posted by Gray @ 09:00 AM CT [Link]
Stilsuits..uh..StilBoxes
NASA's testing a system for future space use that would recycle a person's water from their respiration, sweat, and urine to produce pure water. They hope to use it first to help people in southeast Asia & Iraq. Unfortunately, the system's the size of two fridges, not a nifty suit.
Dune...Arakis...Desert Planet...posted by Kenji @ 04:19 AM CT [Link]
Cut Cutscenes?
From the salt-in-the-wound department, videogamers p.o.'ed about the abrupt ending of Knights of the Old Republic 2 (popular thinking is that development was cut short in mid-plot by pressures to ship the game) have figured out that cutscene media files from the unimplemented part of the game still exist on the game disc revealing more of where the story was headed. [via kotaku]
posted by Gray @ 12:08 PM CT [Link]
It's Not Dead Yet
The Lord of the Rings Musical continues pre-production, aiming for a March 2006 preview run in Toronto, officially opening in London six months later, ultimately followed by mounting it in New York. Which really only leads me to the notion that I can't wait to see Forbidden Broadway do the LotR/Monty Python's Spamalot crossover show.
it writes itself, really it does. arthur and the ka-niggits, hear about a quest regarding the object of ultimate power, presumably the holy grail. they sign up with the fellowship, squeezing out aragorn and boromir to represent mankind, learning only after they've sworn their oath that they're dealing with sauron's ring. highlights include the french knight taunting our heroes from atop orthanc tower, the naughty elf-nuns of lothlorien led by galadriel and sister zoot (guess what zoot uses the light of earendil for), the orcs who say "oy!", the knights trying to get gollum to bang coconuts behind frodo, the witch king getting all his limbs lopped off and calling everyone pansies, the holy hand grenade of numinor versus sheloub, a gilliam-animated eye of sauron (or maybe it would be a giant fiery foot that smashes its opponents), etc., etc.
or... you do it the other way around -- arthur and the roundtable rubes, from the kingdom of camelot (just south of gondor, don't you know) hear of an opposing quest to destroy the great object of power! so they unwittingly become the anti-fellowship, vowing to retreive and protect the object they assume to be the grail. they end up aiding sauron's forces, causing all sorts of headaches for frodo and crew. hilarity ensues. aragorn and arthur duke it out at the gates of mordor for the fate of middle-monty-earth.
...come to think of it -- the above spoof "monty tolkien and the lord of the unholy rings" copyright me, here, now. now, somebody send me money. ;P
UPDATE: ok, this guy is close, but misses the grail parallel... ha -- "Wi nøt trei a høliday in Røhän this yër?"
posted by Gray @ 10:31 AM CT [Link]
Do The Math
From Rolling Stone:
For the price of Janet Jackson’s ‘wardrobe malfunction’ during the Super Bowl, you could cause the wrongful death of an elderly patient in a nursing home and still have enough money left to create dangerous mishaps at two nuclear reactors. (Actually, you might be able to afford four ‘nuke malfunctions’: The biggest fine levied by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year was only $60,000.)
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee thinks that that the FCC should be allowed to
censor"apply broadcast decency standards" to cable television and subscription radio. Says the learned chairman:"There has to be some standard of decency," he said. But he also cautioned that "No one wants censorship."
Because declaring anything you don't like or find to be icky to be indecent is certainly not censorship.
posted by Chris @ 03:15 PM CT [Link]
$ for TV blogs
What is up with this trend? After noticing just in the last couple weeks that ABC pays people to keep "viewer reaction" episode guide blogs for shows such as Lost [handy for finding out what happens in the last 60 seconds that you will miss due to the network's tivo-busting time shifts, trying to punish folks who dvr shows by making them miss the last minute or so of any given show. i'd like to thank abc's website for giving me the workaround for their own broadcasting nonsense], Viacom's Country Music Television channel has posted a job listing offering six digits (!?) for someone to blog their Dukes of Hazzard lineup and make appearances at Dukes-related events and so forth.
posted by Gray @ 02:24 PM CT [Link]
There is a Ghost in Everything
LA Times article contrasting the anime of Oshii (GITS:Innocence) and the anime of Miyazaki (Howl's Moving Castle). It also discusses Oshii's view (not really new) that anime still isn't progressing that much, and features typical, uh, interesting Oshii interview quotes: I think in his head Miyazaki wants to destroy Japan. [via ANN]
posted by Kenji @ 05:25 AM CT [Link]
Documentarie Executive
Apparently, there's going to be a documentary on the life'n'times of Eddie Izzard hitting this September.
posted by Gray @ 08:32 AM CT [Link]
Wight Makes Right
I don't watch The O.C. However, if they're using Eric Wight to do all the comic artwork that shows up in the show, my estimation of them just went up a notch. USA Today, of all things, has done a profile of Wight which includes a slideshow of his stuff accompanied by an audio version of some responses from the interview.
posted by Gray @ 06:10 PM CT [Link]
Groovy.
New Resident Evil-themed bloody chainsaw Gamecube controller.
posted by Sean @ 02:49 PM CT [Link]
Death of a Gentleman Playwright
posted by Gray @ 09:48 AM CT [Link]
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