Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

I wish I could say I've missed a few blogs this past week due to some kind of fantastical road trip or an adventure. Instead, I turned to the solace of Play Station to pass time whilst my Internet was out, because one of the prices for living in the serenity of the marriage grounds of meth labs and incest, is bad Internet connection, along with dreadful service with any piece of technology you can think of. Anyhow, I am back today, starting off with an interesting poster for Grant Heslov's upcoming film The Men Who Stare at Goats. I just loved the fact that the goat got a higher billing than Robert Patrick (the T-1000 for Christ's sake!).

The Independent has a story up that continues the trend of The Walt Disney Company stepping into the role of conglomerate bastardry that we have all come to expect from them. One of the biggest time honored yuletide traditions in England, the lighting of Christmas lights on London's Oxford and Regent streets, has been compromised to accommodate the British premiere of A Christmas Carol, moving the schedule of the event up by nine days. London mayor, Boris Johnson, has already received a shit storm of complaints. Kind of makes you forget about Marvel for a second, right?

Well, it would if I didn't directly blame the Disney/Marvel merger for Time Warner turning DC Comics into the competing DC Entertainment. And the new head of DC Entertainment, Diane Nelson, recently gave an unsettling interview to MTV. The linked article mainly focuses on the fact that Nelson pretty much confirms that any follow up to Superman Returns is completely dead. Of course, after a somewhat (undeserved) mixed response, I can kind of see why DC would pursue some of the more interesting, silver screen virgin characters on their roster. Still, with Nelson's first big interview in the big role garnering some negative fan reactions, I am just curious what is to come.

Jumping back to the Marvel boat, Variety has announced the official opening day of Spider-Man 4 as May 6th, 2011. The article also confirms that Gary Ross, most famous for Big and Pleasantville, will helm the script treatment of the film.

I keep reading these great reviews on The Informant!, but I've yet to really jump aboard based solely on the trailers. I'm sure it is a good movie, with the talents of Matt Damon and Steven Soderbergh, but I think I'm going in a bit more cautiously than the rest of the viewing audience. Nonetheless, I'm still intrigued at the news, courtesy of People, that Soderbergh and Damon teaming back up again for Liberace, a biopic on the titular eccentrically flamboyant pianist. Damon will play the lover of Liberace (played by Michael Douglas).

Geekologie has a troubling post of a visual aid picture of Yaddle, a female member of Yoda's species whom appeared briefly in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, along with a green fleshlight. It may be rather repulsive, but it is still leaps and bounds easier to take than another Twilight sex toy.

Finally, speaking of missing a few days due to my crappy Internet, I missed posting a short film on Sunday for the second week in a row a few days back. After the abysmal box office intake for an animated feature, as well as a somewhat luke warm response on RottenTomatoes, I figure that a drawn out introduction to Shane Acker's 9, the short film inspiration to his feature of the same name, isn't required. I have yet to see the extended version, but hopefully you'll be entertained by the little short so we can move on to something else this coming weekend.

Wednesday, Septermber 9th, 2009

Yesterday, I blogged about the first piece of good news to come from The Walt Disney Company and Marvel Comics huge merger in the form of Pixar giving some desirable eyes to Edgar Wright's script treatment of Ant Man. Well, today there comes the news of the vast implications that concerned us in the broad scheme of things, even outside of the world of Marvel. Via Variety, Warner Brothers is creating DC Entertainment in opposition to the Disney ran Marvel Entertainment. Will much change? The first major blow is to the comic world as former president and publisher of DC Comics Jeff Levitz has stepped down to become a contributing editor, writer and consultant to the new rebooted version of the company, under the tutelage of Warner's Diane Nelson. Obviously this news will strike readers a little hard, but what about the implications on DC's cinematic adaptations? Well, the first and most obvious is that the long secretive next step in the Batman film franchise is hinted at in the article of having a tentatively 2012 release. Is this good news, or is this just going to become a conglomerate race to see whom can ruin their respected comic company first? Only time will tell.

Speaking of Disney, a new trailer for their upcoming return to cel animation, The Princess and the Frog, has been released to much criticism online. Of course, as predicted in Disney's long history of alleged racism, the company's take on a black princess is being scrutinized. Also, IWatchStuff throws in the claim that there is a bit of bestiality for good measure. Watch for yourself and see what you think.

'Princess and the Frog' Theatrical Trailer @ Yahoo! Video

Fox News has a story on another bump in the road for Robert Rodriguez' Red Sonja adaptation as Rose McGowan had to endure serious wrist and elbow surgery after suffering an injury that will put production on hold until the actress heals. I just hope this doesn't kill the project completely as McGowan looks so much better than Brigitte Nielson's big screen turn as the character. Also, you have to love the fact that McGowan is doing her own stunts. So there, I said it, despite all the bad buzz, I am actually looking forward to this.

Yahoo! Movies has released the official poster for Columbia Pictures documentary on the last performances of Michael Jackson in This Is It. Nothing too special, probably to match the film, which will more than likely not be anything more than a money pump from AEG to capitalize on the death of Jackson.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Nicolas Cage has dropped out of the villainous role in The Green Hornet. It seems that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's version of the flick just can't keep anything going for long. But, if it is like other news, such as Stephen Chow's leaving the director's chair for Michel Gondry, it can only bode well for the little film. A piece of casting news we'll be keeping an eye open for.

9 is out today, snagging the interesting release date of 09-09-09. Looks pretty decent. We'll look more at this Sunday when I'll show Shane Acker's original short film that serves as the basis of the Tim Burton/Timur Bekmambetov-produced feature.

I was alerted that today is officially A Day Without Cats online. Of course, The Cheezburger Network and 4Chan are protesting the event pretty hard, and I was going to do my part by looking up some cute cat clips from cinema. Unfortunately, when you type that into Google, you get something like this... McBeardo's Top 100 Cult Movie Nude Scenes, which to be honest wasn't all that bad of a list, and gave me a reason to watch a few clips of Dan O'Bannon's The Return of the Living Dead. When searching a similar query on YouTube, I came up with probably the only thing raunchier than the countdown up there, a red band trailer for Ralph Bakshi's X-rated cartoon Fritz the Cat. I was personally hoping to get a video of two adorable kittens re-enacting the entire "we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses" scene from The Blues Brothers in a cardboard box car. Watching animated cats have explicit group sex in a bath tub comes in at a close second I guess. (In case it wasn't implied, the aforementioned link and the video down below are NSFW.)

P.S. Here is a real fix of kitten fun if you need it.