There do seem to be different rules involved when it comes to death and the island. It reminds me of both Donnie Darko and The Invisibles. In Donnie Darko dying in the time loop allowed someone to step out of regular time as Frank the Bunny does. From this new position he is able to effect events. Similar effects are in play in The Invisibles comic series by Grant Morrison.
Hatch 23: Lost and the Supercontext
So, those were the agendas that we were following then. We thought it would be a great idea if comics could be recognized as the wonderful medium that we secretly knew them to be. And when I say “we,” I’m talking about the 50 actual people who turned up at those early conventions, which was pretty much the sum total of everybody in this country who’d ever heard of American comics. But back then our agenda was this progressive notion that, wouldn’t it be terrific if people were to get involved with comics who could make them more adult, more grown up, to show the kind of themes they were capable of handling? So this was the agenda that, 20 years later, I was still following toward the end of my first DC run. [...]
When I was working upon the ABC books, I wanted to show different ways that mainstream comics could viably have gone, that they didn’t have to follow Watchmen and the other 1980s books down this relentlessly dark route. It was never my intention to start a trend for darkness. I’m not a particularly dark individual. I have my moments, it’s true, but I do have a sense of humor. With the ABC books I was trying to do comics that would have perhaps appealed to an intelligent 13-year-old, such as I’d been, and would still satisfy the contemporary readership of 40-year-old men who probably should know better. But I wanted to sort of do comics that would be accessible to a much wider range of people, and would still be intelligent even if they were primarily children’s adventure stories, such as the Tom Strong books.
Plus:
Wired interview with Dave Gibbons
Wired interview with Zack Snyder
Disinfo podcast interview with Alan Moore
“With the Star Wars saga officially wrapped up with Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, fans will seek out any remaining sliver of that galaxy far, far away on screen. The Clone Wars animated movie gave them a little bit of light drone lasering action, but what really caught their attention was Kyle Newman’s Fanboys.
Set in 1998, the film tells the story of four friends who learn that one of their number has terminal cancer, and will die before he gets to see the long-awaited Star Wars prequel, Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Thus the gang scheme to break into Skywalker Ranch and steal a rough cut. This celluloid tribute to Star Wars fandom was supposed to hit theaters in August 2007, but distributor The Weinstein Company thought they could turn it into a bigger event. They hired Steven Brill to reshoot scenes with more dirty jokes and nudity, and removed that downer cancer bit. After news of the new version leaked, a grassroots online rebellion was mounted, spearheaded by a group called Stop Darth Weinstein who helped get Newman reinstated to deliver his version of the film, albeit two years later.
The saga wasn’t all bad for Newman. He met his wife, Jaime King, on the film. She plays a Las Vegas escort who plays Jedi mind tricks with one of the boys. The online support from fans who just wanted to see the original version also warmed his heart. However, the morning of his press junket in Beverly Hills, Newman was already visibly exhausted. The day was just beginning, but the journey to bring Fanboys to the screen was nearly over. All he had to do was keep his posture up on the sofa and answer questions about Weinstein as diplomatically as possible.”
(via Suicide Girls. Thanks Nicole!)
I came across a snippet in Sci-Fi Wire about a couple of producers closing in on a writer for a film based on the Ouija Board. Guess they forgot about the series of Witchboard movies from the ’80’s. This one may turn out to be good, but the movies that I’ve seen recently haven’t impressed me much. (Then again I haven’t had the time to watch very many.) What’s next? Some marbles and Pik-Up-Stiks become animated and seek revenge? Tarot cards come to life and start the revolution? GI Joe zombies??…
“Platinum Dunes producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form told SCI FI Wire that they’re close to hiring a “very high-level writer” to begin drafting a script for a Ouija-themed movie, tied to the Parker Brothers’ “spirit board” game.
“I don’t think we’ve closed the deal, so I can’t say, but we’ve got a very high-level writer to write that, and we start writing it, I think, within the month,” Fuller said in an interview over the weekend in Beverly Hills, Calif., where he and Form were promoting Friday the 13th.”
(”Closing in on a writer for Ouija movie: The signs are auspicious” via Sci-Fi Wire)
(Related: “Turn your ipod into a Ouija board” via Cnet Uk)
We would talk at great length every time Alan started to script an issue, he’d run by how he thought it might be broken down, then I’d give him my suggestions on that, and then based on the various thing we were talking about – we would both go off into reminiscences, and speculations about how we came through music to comics to childhood experiences to vague feelings about things – somehow we’d come back to the topic of Watchmen again, and this stuff, largely contextual and largely sort of, er, mood as much as anything, would find its way into the finished comic book. We just talked and talked a lot, and then Alan typed and typed a lot and I drew and drew a lot. And then John Higgins – I shouldn’t leave him out – he coloured and coloured a lot, and I very much would talk things through with him, and then just leave him to his own devices. I think good collaborations are like that; you have to trust what the other guy’s going to do, have him put into it, stir the pot, throw in what you’ve got and leave it alone.
Plus: New Dave Gibbons art on Ain’t It Cool
Another Philip K. Dick movie is coming soon: Radio Free Albemuth, starring Alanis Morissette as Sylvia, Jonathan Scarfe as Nicholas Brady, and Shea Whigham as Philip K. Dick himself.
(Thanks Joe)
“Eliza Dushku has more going on than just her much-talked-about starring role in television guru Joss Whedon’s new upcoming series, Dollhouse.
The Bring It On beauty just told me she’s co-producing a movie about the life of Robert Mapplethorpe, the late photographer who caused national headlines with his controversial homoerotic work.
“Literally this week after quite some time, we finalized the deal with the Mapplethorpe estate,” Dushku told me at Gatorade’s G-Gym at Sundance’s Village at the Yard. Dushku’s brother, Nate, will star as Mapplethorpe, who died of AIDS in 1989 at age 42.”
(via E!online)
(Related: “Black, White and Grey: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe” via SangFilms)
“Twentieth Century Fox is bringing the Japanese anime TV series Cowboy Bebop to the big screen, with The Day the Earth Stood Still star Keanu Reeves attached to star as a bounty hunter traveling through space in 2071, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
One of the big titles in anime, Bebop is set in a time where “astral gates” make interstellar travel possible. Humanity, decimated by a lunar explosion resulting from a gate accident, spread out across the solar system, as did crime, which gave rise to the use of bounty hunters. Reeves would play Spike Spiegel, a bounty hunter and former member of a crime syndicate.”
(via SciFi Wire. Thanks JK!)
Patrick McGoohan, the Emmy award-winning actor who created and starred in 1960s TV show The Prisoner, has died at the age of 80.
The actor’s son-in-law, film producer Cleve Landsberg, said today that McGoohan had died yesterday in Los Angeles after a short illness.
McGoohan was best known as the title character Number Six in surreal drama The Prisoner, which aired on ITV in the UK. He played a former spy who is held captive in a small village and constantly tries to escape.
He also won two Emmys for detective drama Columbo, playing different characters, with the first coming in 1974 and the other 16 years later.
More recently, McGoohan appeared as King Edward Longshanks in the 1995 Mel Gibson film Braveheart.
I guess this means we won’t see him play Number Two in the new movie and/or TV series. RIP Number Six.
“Just when it appeared that George Lucas had finally laid to rest his epic saga of Jedis, Wookies and Ewoks, he has announced that Star Wars will return as a stadium experience. The Times has learnt that Lucasfilm has authorised Star Wars: A Musical Journey, a retelling of the story that will combine excerpts of the film with live orchestral accompaniment. Diehard fans may dream of Jedi Knights serenading Jabba the Hutt and C-3PO singing “Don’t cry for me, R2-D2” but they are likely to be disappointed. Producers for the show, which will have its world premiere in Britain, emphasised that although actors would be used to narrate the story, it would not be a stage musical.
The production, which condenses more than 13 hours of film into 90 minutes, will be more like a classical music concert performed in front of a cinema screen, 27m (90ft) wide. The audience at the 17,000-seat O2 Arena in southeast London will watch key scenes from the film as 86 musicians from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra play extracts from John Williams’s score. The composer has reworked the music for the show, which will take place on April 10. Other shows may follow, depending on demand.”
(via The TimesOnline)
Over the weekend some friends of mine went to the premier of “My Name is Bruce”, where Bruce Campbell himself conducted a question and answer session after the movie. I finally got to see the movie myself and it’s a hilarious parody of Bruce and his movies. If you like silly B-horror movie schlock with self-depreciating humor thrown in it, you’ll enjoy this movie. Here are some of the Q and A’s from that night:
Q- “You’re named after a king of Scotland!”
Bruce- “Yes, I was named after Robert the Bruce! Robert the Bruce of Scotland!”
Q- “Have you thought of doing a Celtic/Scottish style horror movie with kilts and swords?
We wanna see you in a kilt and waving a sword around.”Bruce- “No, I hadn’t thought of that. I’m actually not Scottish, I’m descended from the Basque.”
Q- “Well, they wear kilts too! How about it?! You can call it BruceHeart!”
Bruce- ” I like the way you think! What do you do?”
A- I’m a student.”
Bruce- “Well, you better stay with that!”
Q-”How many Hawaiian shirts do you own?”
Bruce- “I don’t know. I like to pick up goofy shirts. I hate wearing ties! Is anybody here wearing a tie tonight?” (silence)
“Good!”
Q- “Do you have any of the Elvis outfits from Bubba Hotep?
Bruce- “You know, I don’t have any Elvis suits. They all belong to the place that originally made them for Elvis. You can’t buy them, only rent them. So I don’t have any of those cool costumes at home in my closet.”
Q-What was your favorite movie to work on?
Bruce- “You mean like, the most pleasant circumstances to work in, or favorite movie to make?
If you have too good a time, it isn’t going to be that good of a movie. You have to work to make a good movie. You’re up early, working 12-16 hours a day. If it is not a pleasant time then you end up with a good movie.” (Basically he said that he enjoyed making movies and he really didn’t have a favorite.)He also mentioned that he had the set for “My Name Is Bruce” built on his property in California. Now what can he do with it? A delivery man came to drop off a package, drove up the drive, got out and looked around with a look of befuddlement or amazement and said “I didn’t know there was a ghost town out here. Is this a ghost town? Gold Lick [the name of the town in the movie]? Was this here all along?”
(Many thanks to the Jones’!)
(See also: A brief interview with Campbell “Cult Star Campbell Does Double Duty in Horror Comedy” via The Daily Herald)
“Over the weekend I attended The Future of Entertainment 3, a conference organized by MIT’s Comparative Media Studies department. The two day event featured back to back roundtables focusing on issues related to social media, audience participation, and “spreadable media,” a term CMS director Henry Jenkins coined as a more appropriate way to describe content than “viral.” (Viral connotes an inexplicable element the “infected” have no control over. It suggests you can “design the perfect virus and give it to the right first carriers.”)
From a post on Jenkins’ blog last year:
Our core argument is that we are moving from an era when stickiness was the highest virtue because the goal of pull media was to attract consumers to your site and hold them there as long as possible, not unlike, say, a roach hotel. Instead, we argue that in the era of convergence culture, what media producers need to develop spreadable media. Spreadable content is designed to be circulated by grassroots intermediaries who pass it along to their friends or circulate it through larger communities (whether a fandom or a brand tribe). It is through this process of spreading that the content gains greater resonance in the culture, taking on new meanings, finding new audiences, attracting new markets, and generating new values. In a world of spreadable media, we are going to see more and more media producers openly embrace fan practices, encouraging us to take media in our own hands, and do our part to insure the long term viability of media we like.
Indeed, our new mantra is that if it doesn’t spread, it’s dead.”
(via The Tomorrow Museum)
“Blogging has become something of a pop culture phenomenon. It’s a virtual platform that gives everyone – from novice to novelist – a unique voice and presence on the vast World Wide Web. The ultimate in self-publishing, upgraded for the 21st century.
But like the virtual social networks that bring people from around the world together, it seems like a natural progression then that bloggers would branch out from their individual self-expression and seek group affiliation. In the horror arena, a group of stalwart bloggers joined forces earlier this year to form the peculiarly named League of Tana Tea Drinkers (or LOTT D). The brainchild of John Cozzoli, who has helmed his own long-running blog called ZOMBOS CLOSET OF HORROR which explores the horror genre as reflected in all media and pop culture, LOTT D now includes 29 member blogs and continues to grow. Impressive in its variety, the LOTT D boasts member blogs covering everything from Frankenstein to Godzilla, slasher films to zombies, and childhood terrors to comic books. Spend a few hours perusing the LOTT D’s member blogs and you’ll find everything you need for a serious horror fix — from serious film commentary to some of the funniest genre observations, insightful original essays to button-pushing opinion pieces, and heaps of useful book and films reviews from classic to current.
The mission of the LOTT D is outlined on its virtual homepage:
“Our mission is to acknowledge, foster, and support thoughtful, articulate, and creative blogs built on an appreciation of the horror and sci-horror genre. Horror bloggers are a unique group of devoted fans and professionals, from all walks of life, who keep the horror genre, in all its permutations and media outlets, alive and kicking. Often spending long hours to keep their blogs informative and fun, horror bloggers share their unique mix of personality, culture and knowledge freely to fans of a genre difficult to describe, but easy to love.”
DSM recently caught up with Cozzoli (aka ILoz Zoc) and five of his LOTT D compatriots for an informal discussion about this groundbreaking new consortium of horror bloggers. Joining him are Stacie Ponder, FINAL GIRL proprietress and AMC columnist extraordinaire, Lance Vaughan (aka Unkle Lancifer), co-creator of the childhood terror site KINDERTRAUMA, August Ragone , author and renowned authority on Japanese film and culture who helms THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND GODZILLA, John Morehead, academic and explorer of the social, cultural, mythic, archetypal, imaginative, creative, and even spiritual aspects of the fantastic at his blog THEOFANTASTIQUE, and Mike Petrucelli (aka Pax Romano), witty commentator on the queer subtext of horror films from BILLY LOVES STU.”
(via Dark Scribe Magazine)
I’ve been a big fan of Gary Larson’s “The Far Side” for as long as I can remember. His “outside the box” comics of silly reactions that monsters, animals, insects, aliens, and even vegetables might have in reaction to us human beings pulls me out of my reality tunnel and makes me laugh, and sometimes more importantly, is a reminder not to take everything so seriously. Now a DVD set of “Tales From The Far Side”, an animated series that appeared on TV in 1994, is available.
“Almost everyone has seen a Gary Larson Far Side cartoon in a newspaper or on a T-shirt, mug, calendar, or greeting card. But if you weren’t watching CBS on the night of October 26, 1994, you missed Tales From the Far Side, an award-winning animated short film that you’ve probably never heard of. Yes, that’s right: the Far Side was animated. Twice. And it’s brilliant.
The first short film premiered as a Halloween special in 1994, where couch potatoes and animation buffs like me saw it and were never able to forget it. The program was never broadcast on television again, but it did make the rounds at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, where it took the Grand Prix. Three years later, a sequel (aptly titled Tales From the Far Side II) never even made it to television.
Both short films are comprised of a series of vignettes in the visual style of the print comics, with a haunting musical accompaniment by jazz guitarist Bill Frisell (who has featured some of the scores from the soundtrack on his disc Quartet). The tone ranges from the slapstick to the macabre, humorous to depressing, and even has some live action cow action thrown in there.”
(via Fantasy Magazine)
With all the “doom and gloom” brought on by the economic crisis and the intensity of the upcoming election, I figured it was time for some levity. Here’s some links to make you laugh or distract you. (Readers, feel free to add your own in the comments.)
“With Hollywood hitting up comic books for blockbusters, a new comics publisher is looking to India for ideas. “The world is increasingly realizing that India is a source for creativity and great ideas, not just a back office to execute them more cheaply,” said Gotham Chopra, part of the management team at Los Angeles-based Liquid Comics.
One of the first projects for the publisher will be bringing its Ramayan 3392 AD (pictured) - a colorful, 21st-century re-imagining of Indian literary epic the Ramayana - to movie theaters. Liquid has teamed up with Mandalay Pictures and 300 producer Mark Canton for the film, which has a planned release date of 2011. Liquid sprang from the ashes of Virgin Comics, a shuttered enterprise from Richard Branson and the Chopra family that was meant to hammer the dense narratives of India and Asia into graphic novels for the American mainstream and beyond. Chopak and other members of the Liquid management team undertook the buyout of Virgin Comics to continue the quest at the new company.
Chopra talked with Wired.com about Liquid’s birth, a new wave of Indian comics artists and the challenge of bringing an ancient Sanskrit epic to the silver screen.”
(via Wired)
“Dan Brown’s hugely popular book, and the subsequent film starring Tom Hanks, depicted the Roman Catholic order as a religious cult which would stop at nothing - including murder - to cover up the ‘truth’ that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had married and had a child.
Most damaging for Opus Dei was Brown’s fictional character Silas, the self-flagellating and serial-killing albino monk, said to be a member of the organisation - despite the fact that it is not a monastic order and has no monks. Opus Dei has recently embarked on a public relations campaign to try to dispel its image as a powerful but shadowy off-shoot of the Roman Catholic Church.
The mini-series and cartoon are the latest initiatives in the charm offensive. They were announced on the 80th anniversary of the organisation’s founding by a Spanish priest, Jose Maria Escriva de Balaguer, who died in 1975. The cartoon is in the production phase by Mediaset, the media company owned by Italy’s prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. The mini-series is being developed by Mediaset’s public broadcaster rival, RAI. They are intended to show that Opus Dei (Latin for The Work of God) has nothing to hide, said spokesman Pippo Corigliano.”
(via The Telegraph)
“Classic film fans lock up your daughters, take up your wooden stakes and prepare to battle the forces of darkness: Hammer Films has announced it’s called action on its first horror production for over 30 years. Principal photography began today in County Donegal on The Wake Wood, featuring Eva Birthistle, Aidan Gillen and Timothy Spall. David Keating is at the helm, directing a screenplay he co-wrote with Brendan McCarthy.
The suitably Hammeresque blurb explains: “Still grieving the death of nine-year-old Alice - their only child - at the jaws of a crazed dog, vet Patrick and pharmacist Louise relocate to the remote town of Wake Wood where they learn of a pagan ritual that will allow them three more days with Alice. The couple find the idea disturbing and exciting in equal measure, but once they agree terms with Arthur, the village’s leader, a far bigger question looms - what will they do when it’s time for Alice to go back?” Crikey. Hammer’s first production was The Public Life Of Henry The Ninth, way back in 1935. Its final cinematic curtain call came in 1979 with a rehash of Alfred Hitchcock classic The Lady Vanishes.”
(via The Register)
“Kelly Sheckler is blond with a heart-shaped face and a warm smile. Five feet tall on a good day, she’s mother to three children, wife to Tom, employee of the Environmental Protection Agency, keeper of a tidy home in Lawrenceville. But when she crosses a stage at the downtown Sheraton Sunday, she will be something else altogether: KhaZelia VanGough — warrior, leader and Miss Klingon Empire 2008 hopeful.
Miss Klingon Empire is an annual pageant at DragonCon, the sci-fi/fantasy geek gathering that descends upon Atlanta every year to pay homage to Superman, Storm Troopers and Star Fleet, among others. To win Miss Klingon Empire, a contestant need not have the best costume or the prettiest (ugliest?) face. Simply, she must embody a Klingon, a fictitious alien race famous for its ridged forehead and brutal manner that debuted in the original ‘Star Trek’ TV series and has been a part of the ‘Trek’ franchise ever since.
Contestants don’t catfight — female sci-fi lovers tend to stick together — but they don’t play around, either. Thousands of audience members won’t let them. When a past contestant appeared on stage in a Hooters uniform, the audience was at first entertained but quickly dismissed her, judges recalled. Klingon women may be known for ample bosoms, but they’d never show them that way. And once the queen is awarded her crown, trophy, sash and flowers, judges name no first or second runner-up. In the Klingon world, there are only winners and losers.”
(via ajc.com)
(Related: “Klingon Like Me” via Techgnosis)
“Bill Hicks, the anarchic comedian who shocked enough people in the late 80s and early 90s to be dubbed ‘Goat-boy’, is to be played by Russell Crowe in a new biopic. His tale has enough laughs, drink, drugs and general chaos to be bog-standard comedian biopic material, and the film is likely to raise more laughs than similar material such as the very intense 1975 Lenny Bruce biopic Lenny. I guess we’ll find out if Mr. Hicks was quite as sex-starved as he was always complaining of…”
(via Den of Geek. See also “10 Ways the Casting of the Bill Hicks Movie Could Be Worse” via Den of Geek)
This is for all you documentary addicts out there:
“At SnagFilms.com, you can watch full-length documentary films for free, but we also make it easy for you to take our films with you and put them anywhere on the web. When you embed a widget on your web site, you open a virtual movie theater and become a ‘Filmanthropist.’ Donate your pixels and support independent film! And click on ‘info’ on any widget to learn more about that film and a related charity you can also support.
With a library of 225 documentaries, and rapidly growing - browse by topic or go through the alphabet from A-Z - you’re bound to find films that resonate with your interests. There is a widget for EVERY film, so any film you like can be snagged. [..] Enjoy your visit, snag a film, and keep checking back because we’re adding great news titles daily.”
(SnagFilms.com. h/t: The Daily Galaxy)
“A blind five-year-old pianist from South Korea has stunned the music world after a video of her performance received more than 27million hits. Yoo Ye-eun, who was born blind and adopted in 2002, has never had a formal piano lesson but can play any song after just one listen.
And now her remarkable talent is set to propel her to stardom as clips of her amazing performance have attracted millions of viewers to Korean website Pandora TV. A similar clip on YouTube has so far received two million hits. Her display on ‘Star King’, a Korean talent show, earned the youngster 500 in prize money and moved the studio audience to tears.”
(via The Daily Mail)
