Friday, July 17th, 2009

This picture showed up on I Watch Stuff today, and I could not blog without posting it. Just gives off a wonderful vibe, doesn't it?

More good news for the day, Kevin Smith's two biggest hits, 1994's independent gem, and one of my favorite films of all time, Clerks., as well as 1997's Chasing Amy will be getting the blu ray treatment. Among the extras, the Clerks. disc will feature a three hour documentary formerly only seen at festival screenings, called Oh, What a Lovely Tea Party, a behind-the-scenes taping of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back directed by Smith's wife Jennifer Schwalbach-Smith. I still personally stick with the DVD medium for the most part, unless I can find a really bitchin' VHS. But I am glad that whenever DVD becomes obsolete, that Smith's two classic raunchy comedies will be there waiting for me.

Has anybody heard that some theaters' automated telephone schedules have been giving a warning about the content in Bruno? I am just curious to what got cut for the MPAA to change the film's rating from an NC-17 to an R, considering it had to be somewhat more shocking than what the world is up in arms about. Can't wait for that DVD.

Walter Cronkite passed away today at the age of 92. Cronkite didn't have much to do with cinema, but was indeed a panelist on most of the American Film Institute countdowns and television specials on classic films, a interviewee in several documentaries, including Out of the Shadows: The Man Who Was Deep Throat, Good Grief, Charlie Brown: A Tribute to Charles Schulz and Bob Hope: The First 90 Years among others, and even provided his voice to the lackluster cartoon We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story in 1993. Not to mention receiving a load of special thanks credits that include Apollo 13 and Empire of Dreams, the documentary featured on the 4-disc 2004 release of the original Star Wars trilogy. Needless to say on tomorrow's news, none of these things will be mentioned as Cronkite's coverage of things, such as John F. Kennedy's assassination and the Vietnam War are much more important, and in that way, is why more so than anything I listed above, Cronkite is important to film. He is the news anchor of news anchors, and is the archetype that most screenwriters and authors put to use for such a character.

Finally, I mentioned Where the Wild Things Are yesterday, but a video surfaced on the web today on what a potential Disney animated version of Maurice Sendak's beloved children's work could have been like. Directed by Pixar founder and animation legend John Lasseter, it actually looks quite good. But before you get too down, go look up Spike Jonze's trailer again and you will realize that ultimately, it was a good thing this failed, or else we might not have the upcoming live action version. Enjoy.



P.S., I try to stay away from covering television on here, but since Futurama has spun-off four direct-to-DVD films, it is close enough. The A.V. Club has reported that Comedy Central is looking to recast the voice talent for the series. Look, it broke my heart when they left Adult Swim, but to keep this going with new people, it's just wrong. In my digging on more to this story, I even found a character description of Dr. Zoidberg. Does this mean no Billy West? Really!? Jesus, what's the world coming to.