So I've decided to pursue my dream despite the fact that there's no sign of marriage in my immediate – or perhaps even distant – future. Naturally, taking care of a baby is a chore on its own, but getting pregnant is my present challenge. In less than two weeks, I will be ovulating, which as everyone should know is primetime for baby making. The problem is that I don't yet have a partner for this process. Now, I'm not looking for a source of child support or a baby-daddy in the sense that he should have any supportive role in the pregnancy or in raising the child, I just need some good, hearty seed.
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9.24.2008
"DEAR BLACK CABS," THE EMAIL BEGAN, "WOULD YOU PLEASE CONSIDER FILMING A SESSION WITH BRIAN WILSON (OF THE BEACH BOYS)." THEY REALLY DIDN'T NEED TO ADD THAT LAST BIT ABOUT THE BEACH BOYS. A FEW WEEKS LATER WE WERE OUTSIDE ABBEY STUDIOS, WITH THE TAXI HUMMING PATIENTLY BEHIND US, NERVOUSLY AWAITING ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL SONGWRITERS OF ALL TIME. AND THEN HE EMERGED WITH HIS BAND: FIVE OF THEM IN TOTAL. BIT TRICKY THAT BECAUSE, OF COURSE, YOU CAN ONLY SIT FIVE IN THE BACK OF CAB, AND SEEING AS THERE WERE TWO OF US TO FILM AND RECORD SOUND, THAT MADE AN UNLUCKY SEVEN IN TOTAL. SO WE JETTISONED SOUND RECORDING DUTIES, MADE THE FIVE OF THEM COMFORTABLE, AND WEDGED OUR CAMERAMAN IN AN AWKWARD STRESS POSITION BETWEEN THE JUMP SEATS. AND WE WERE AWAY, THE CAMERAMAN FILMING AN UNFORGETTABLE BLACK CAB SESSION WITH BRIAN WILSON (OF THE BEACH BOYS), TRYING TO KEEP THE CAMERA STEADY AS CRAMP SLOWLY TIGHTENS AROUND HIS HAMSTRING. AMAZINGLY, AFTER PERFORMING THAT LUCKY OLD SUN, THE BAND BREAK OUT INTO CALIFORNIA GIRLS. WE'VE COAXED SOME PRETTY BIG ACTS INTO THE BACK OF A CAB BUT LANDING BRIAN WILSON REALLY IS THE MOTHER OF ALL COUPS. WE HOPE YOU ENJOY IT - AND TO GET THE LATEST UPDATES ON FUTURE RELEASES (AND OH BOY WE'VE GOT SOME CRACKERS IN THE MIX), BE SURE TO SIGN UP TO THE KNOWLEDGE. OVER TO YOU BRIAN..
9.23.2008
Predator 3. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yes. (Maybe).
You know what there’s not enough of? Films about really old men titting around in the woods with an invisible alien that looks like Whoopi Goldberg.
If you happen to agree with us then you’re in for a treat - movie producer John Davis has decided to revive the Predator franchise. Not just that, but he wants to bring back the biggest star of any of the Predator movies at the same time. That’s right - Gary Busey.
No, wait, not Gary Busey. Arnold Schwarzenegger. John Davis wants to make Predator 3, and he wants Arnold Schwarzenegger to star in it. Predator 3 is far from official, mind you, because nobody knows what Arnold Schwarzenegger’s long-term political goals are. Also, we assume it’ll probably be quite hard to find anyone clever enough to write a film where the universe’s most advanced game hunters have trouble outwitting a rich old bloke with a funny accent.
It’s now completely fine for older actors to return to their action movie roots. Everyone’s doing it - Bruce Willis made Die Hard 4, Harrison Ford made Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull and Sylvester Stallone’s entire retirement plan seems to involve running through the jungle and firing a machine gun into the air until his knees eventually give out.
But there’s one action star who hasn’t chosen to do that - Arnold Schwarzenegger. Rather than, say, take the easy option and make Conan The Incontinent, Arnold Schwarzenegger has decided to concentrate on his job as Governor or California - a task that involves nothing more than tutting about the paparazzi and making horribly smug tourism adverts sometimes.
But as thrilling as recommending state legislation is, there has to be a part of Arnold Schwarzenegger that misses the old days. The days where all he had to do was frown and explode people in an impenetrable European accent and people would give him a million dollars.
That’s what producer John Davis is hoping, anyway. He’s got it in his head to make Predator 3 and, more than anything else, he wants Arnold Schwarzenegger to be in it. Davis told Collider:
“Well, the Governor has mentioned to me that when he ceases to be Governor, if he doesn’t run for the Senate and all of that stuff, he’d like to do a movie or two again. And I don’t know, maybe we could restart the Predator franchise… We’d have to come up with a really good script and a really great angle on it.”
What? No you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t need a great script for Predator 3 at all. We’ve seen Predator 2, Alien Vs Predator and Alien Vs Predator: Requiem, so we’re pretty sure that if you got a Romanian badger with learning difficulties do draw a picture of an explosion in wax crayon on a sheet of used toilet paper, it’d still probably qualify as the best Predator script that’s been written for 20 years.
Let’s be honest, though. Just because Arnold Schwarzenegger could make Predator 3, it doesn’t mean that he should. By the time he finishes his next term as Governor he’ll be 64 years old, and we just can’t see how that could make Predator 3 any good. We’ve looked at this from all angles, and here are the only ways that Predator 3 with Arnold Schwarzenegger could possibly work.
1 - The Predator has given up hunting for a life of conning the elderly out of their savings by fraudulently posing as a wall insulation salesman… but he picked the wrong vulnerable old man in Arnold Schwarzenegger.
2 - Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Predator decide their fate by having a Sudoku-off.
3 - Rather than coat himself in mud, Arnold Schwarzenegger accidentally defeats the Predator’s heat-vision by popping his colostomy bag on a hot radiator, skidding about in the mess until he’s covered in it and lying there for three days in the cold waiting for one of his children to come and help him up again.
4 - Not making Predator 3 with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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We've been expecting you, Mr... er...? New Bond blockbuster drops the catchphrases
His name is Bond, James Bond: just don't expect him to introduce himself. For the first time in his 22 screen outings, Britain's best- known secret agent will not utter the words of introduction that have thrilled fans and appalled master criminals for 46 years.
Nor in his next adventure, Quantum of Solace, released in November, does 007 utter the other classic one-liner – "shaken not stirred" – when ordering his martini, according to the director, Marc Forster.
"There was a 'Bond, James Bond' in the script," he said. "There are several places where we shot it as well, but it never worked as we hoped. I just felt we should cut it out, and Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson [the film's producers] agreed, and Daniel [Craig, who plays Bond] agreed, too. It's nice to be open-minded about the Bond formula. You can always go back to them later on."
It is another radical departure for Bond who, in his last film, Casino Royale, found himself stripped of many on-screen staples.
Gone were the unfeasible gadgets on which he could always rely in a tight spot. The boffin who created them in the basement of the MI6 building, Q, played in the past by Desmond Llewellyn and John Cleese, was also therefore eliminated, along with Miss Moneypenny and her flirtatious banter. Bond even briefly abandoned his high-performance motor to drive a Ford Mondeo before reverting to an Aston Martin.
It is all part of a deliberate attempt to bring the agent with a licence to kill into the 21st century – the producers declined the film rights to Sebastian Faulks's Bond homage, Devil May Care, last month because it was set in the 1960s – yet also to take him back to his 1950s roots.
The move is welcomed by fans who have seen the films veer away from how Bond's creator, Ian Fleming, originally envisaged his cold-blooded hero.
Graham Rye, who edits the online 007 Magazine said that Craig, who made his debut in last year's Casino Royale, is much closer to Fleming's vision.
"The Bond films had become tired and needed reinvigorating," he said. "Rather than going away from Fleming I think the producers have gone back to him."
Mr Rye added that the famous ingredients of the film, such as Q and Moneypenny, had only featured once or twice in the books. Nor does he make a habit of ordering martinis or introducing himself.
"His announcing of himself had become a bit corny," he added. "Casino Royale gets back to the spirit of the books, rather than all the silliness."
Ajay Chowdhury, who edits the Bond fan club magazine Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, added that excising the famous lines was unlikely to upset Bond fans.
"The producers have been mixing and matching the famous Bond tropes – such as the theme song and the gun-barrel sequence," he said. "But this time there is a theme song by Jack White and Alicia Keys. If this line of script is not in there it's not going to undo the foundations of Bond. The fans didn't miss Moneypenny or Q. Bond is the only British character with worldwide resonance now, apart from Harry Potter. The producers are paying more attention to psychology and relationships, as well as adventure.
"Quantum of Solace picks up from Casino Royale, which was a really good thriller first and a good Bond movie second."
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"Hmmmm....not shaken, nor stirred - really 007, what is going on?"
Nor in his next adventure, Quantum of Solace, released in November, does 007 utter the other classic one-liner – "shaken not stirred" – when ordering his martini, according to the director, Marc Forster.
"There was a 'Bond, James Bond' in the script," he said. "There are several places where we shot it as well, but it never worked as we hoped. I just felt we should cut it out, and Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson [the film's producers] agreed, and Daniel [Craig, who plays Bond] agreed, too. It's nice to be open-minded about the Bond formula. You can always go back to them later on."
It is another radical departure for Bond who, in his last film, Casino Royale, found himself stripped of many on-screen staples.
Gone were the unfeasible gadgets on which he could always rely in a tight spot. The boffin who created them in the basement of the MI6 building, Q, played in the past by Desmond Llewellyn and John Cleese, was also therefore eliminated, along with Miss Moneypenny and her flirtatious banter. Bond even briefly abandoned his high-performance motor to drive a Ford Mondeo before reverting to an Aston Martin.
It is all part of a deliberate attempt to bring the agent with a licence to kill into the 21st century – the producers declined the film rights to Sebastian Faulks's Bond homage, Devil May Care, last month because it was set in the 1960s – yet also to take him back to his 1950s roots.
The move is welcomed by fans who have seen the films veer away from how Bond's creator, Ian Fleming, originally envisaged his cold-blooded hero.
Graham Rye, who edits the online 007 Magazine said that Craig, who made his debut in last year's Casino Royale, is much closer to Fleming's vision.
"The Bond films had become tired and needed reinvigorating," he said. "Rather than going away from Fleming I think the producers have gone back to him."
Mr Rye added that the famous ingredients of the film, such as Q and Moneypenny, had only featured once or twice in the books. Nor does he make a habit of ordering martinis or introducing himself.
"His announcing of himself had become a bit corny," he added. "Casino Royale gets back to the spirit of the books, rather than all the silliness."
Ajay Chowdhury, who edits the Bond fan club magazine Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, added that excising the famous lines was unlikely to upset Bond fans.
"The producers have been mixing and matching the famous Bond tropes – such as the theme song and the gun-barrel sequence," he said. "But this time there is a theme song by Jack White and Alicia Keys. If this line of script is not in there it's not going to undo the foundations of Bond. The fans didn't miss Moneypenny or Q. Bond is the only British character with worldwide resonance now, apart from Harry Potter. The producers are paying more attention to psychology and relationships, as well as adventure.
"Quantum of Solace picks up from Casino Royale, which was a really good thriller first and a good Bond movie second."
Link
"Hmmmm....not shaken, nor stirred - really 007, what is going on?"
The World’s Most Expensive Typos
When you think of typos, you think of grammar and poor middle school grades. It’s hard to imagine that in this day and age a typo of any serious consequence can make it through the cracks, with spell-check being an automatic feature in most email services and office software. However, some typos in recent years have made it into the news, albeit sometimes under unusual circumstances. The typo, it seems, will likely never go away completely because its very existence is a reflection of the human element in everyday life. It usually also seems like the consequences of some of these more influential typos result in some people winning some people losing. Is it karma or luck? Here are some of the more expensive and prominently featured typos and errors in the last decade or so.
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WHY GOOGLE'S ONLINE ENCYCLOPEDIA WILL NEVER BE AS GOOD AS WIKIPEDIA
There are two articles about Sarah Palin on Google Knol, the search company's abysmal new Wikipedia-like reference guide. One of them is a mess: Just a few hundred words long, the article is fraught with factual and grammatical errors. The other Palin entry is much more readable and informative, offering a thorough, balanced look at Palin's years in city and state government and her positions on national political issues. Unlike Wikipedia, Knol displays its authors' names and credentials to help you decide whether to trust a given piece. When I click on the name of the second Palin entry's author, Sam Goldfarb, I see that he's also written Knol articles about advertising on Facebook, the Chinese territory of Macau, and several hotels in Israel. How does Goldfarb know so much about so many things? You might call him a keen student of the Web—a bit of Googling confirms that each of his articles was lifted from other online sources.
Goldfarb's great Palin entry is a copy of the Wikipedia article on the Alaska governor as it appeared on Aug. 29, the day John McCain picked Palin as his running mate. That's why the Knol piece still describes Palin as having "successfully killed the Bridge to Nowhere"; the Wikipedia entry on Palin has since been updated thousands of times, and it now tells a more nuanced story about her flip-flop on the bridge. (Wikipedia's articles are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, which allows people to copy an entry's text as long as they also reproduce the license; Goldfarb's Palin article and many others on Knol that copy from Wikipedia don't follow those rules.) Goldfarb's Macau article is lifted from this Macau travel site, his Facebook piece draws from this ad company, and his hotel guides pull from the hotels' Web sites.
Knol is a wasteland of such articles: text copied from elsewhere, outdated entries abandoned by their creators, self-promotion, spam, and a great many old college papers that people have dug up from their files. Part of Knol's problem is its novelty. Google opened the system for public contribution just a couple months ago, so it's unreasonable to expect too much of it at the moment; Wikipedia took years to attract the sort of contributors and editors who've made it the amazing resource it is now.
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Goldfarb's great Palin entry is a copy of the Wikipedia article on the Alaska governor as it appeared on Aug. 29, the day John McCain picked Palin as his running mate. That's why the Knol piece still describes Palin as having "successfully killed the Bridge to Nowhere"; the Wikipedia entry on Palin has since been updated thousands of times, and it now tells a more nuanced story about her flip-flop on the bridge. (Wikipedia's articles are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, which allows people to copy an entry's text as long as they also reproduce the license; Goldfarb's Palin article and many others on Knol that copy from Wikipedia don't follow those rules.) Goldfarb's Macau article is lifted from this Macau travel site, his Facebook piece draws from this ad company, and his hotel guides pull from the hotels' Web sites.
Knol is a wasteland of such articles: text copied from elsewhere, outdated entries abandoned by their creators, self-promotion, spam, and a great many old college papers that people have dug up from their files. Part of Knol's problem is its novelty. Google opened the system for public contribution just a couple months ago, so it's unreasonable to expect too much of it at the moment; Wikipedia took years to attract the sort of contributors and editors who've made it the amazing resource it is now.
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Pinhole skull-camera
Third Eye: a sculpture by artist Wayne Martin Bleger in which the 150 year old skull of a thirteen year old girl — strategically trephined &mdashl becomes a pinhole camera. Quoth Ectoplasmosis' Ross Rosenberg, whose prose I can blockquote wholesale by dint of the fact that I own his words:
Wayne Martin Bleger makes pinhole cameras using a variety of materials including precious stones, metals, human organs, and bone. This piece, entitled Third Eye, features many of these materials, all constructed around the 150 year-old skull of a 13 year-old girl. The film is exposed to light through titular ocular cavity making a Polaroid momento mori. The photos taken with this camera (one of which is after the jump) stay with the theme, their blurriness and patina making them look as if they were snatched from the memories of the dead.
Gizmo Watch, bless them, wants no ambiguity in regard to why we should all find this skull camera rather interesting, with a bolded What's Innovative heading that reads:
The Third Eye pinhole camera isn’t a regular plastic contraption. Making use of a 150-year-old skull as the camera structure is not just innovative, but unbelievably creative. If you can peep through a skull and see death’s pale visage staring back at you, rest assured excitement will not be the instant feeling.
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"Maybe it's just me, but this gives me the heebie-jeebies."
Confirmed: Warner Bros. Will Reboot Superman Film Franchise
Warner Bros. has confirmed long-running rumors that it will reboot the Superman movie franchise.
Jeff Robinov, Warner Bros. Pictures Group President, tells The Wall Street Journal that the Man of Steel will be reintroduced on the big screen without regard to 2006’s Superman Returns.
“Superman didn’t quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to,” Robinov says. “It didn’t position the character the way he needed to be positioned. ... Had Superman worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009.”
There’s no mention whether Superman Returns director Bryan Singer will be part of the reboot. Earlier this week, Variety’s Anne Thompson reported “that it is a priority at the studio to find the right direction and if Bryan Singer is willing to do that, fine, but if he gets in the way, he may not stay on the project.”
Taking a page from Marvel, Warner Bros. has reversed its earlier position of using the now-stalled Justice League of America as a launching pad for other DC properties. Instead, it will focus on solo features to build toward a multicharacter film.
“Along those lines, we have been developing every DC character that we own,” Robinov says.
That may sound less like a “strategy” and more like a mad cash-grab. Something else that might not sit right with some fans is Robinov’s determination to explore the darker side of super-heroes: “We’re going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters allow it.”
According to The Journal, Warner Bros. plans to release four comic-book movies in the next three years: the third Batman installment, the Superman reboot, and two focusing on other DC Comics characters. (It’s unclear whether Watchmen is included in that count.) Likely candidates include Green Arrow/Super Max, Green Lantern, Captain Marvel and, perhaps, Jonah Hex.
As Variety reported over the weekend, Warner Bros. is expected to roll out its strategy for its DC Comics movie properties sometime within the next month.
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9.21.2008
Red Dwarf to come back with 4 new episodes
reddwarf.co.uk has the facts. As announced by Robert Llewellyn for Grant Naylor Productions this week at the UKTV seasonal press launch, the project is a short series of brand new specials to celebrate the 21st birthday of Red Dwarf.
Doug Naylor will be masterminding the four half-hour installments, and the regular cast will all be reprising their iconic roles. They are being made by GNP for UKTV’s free-to-air channel, Dave - our new best friends!
Red Dwarf repeats on Dave - including an anniversary weekend run - have picked up remarkable numbers since the channel was reborn on Freeview, and it’s becoming clear to all concerned that the show is picking a new, third generation audience. With the usual involvement from Red Dwarf partners BBC Worldwide, you can also expect international broadcasts to follow (and, we’d imagine, a top-quality DVD release in the fullness of time).
“It’s very new news to me - I really only fully heard the details yesterday,” Robert told comedian/host Michael McIntyre. “We’re doing four new shows with the original cast. Two of them are going to be, like, proper episodes of Red Dwarf. One of them is so exciting I’ve been asked not to say anything about that because other people will steal the idea - and it is a great idea, quite challenging for us as performers. And the other one is a kind of behind-the-scenes-y… the truth. There’s been so many rumours and gossip about Red Dwarf, about whether there’s going to be a movie and whether we all get on, all those things… The downside for me, which is just dawning on me now, is I’ve got to do the ‘rubber’ thing again, which I haven’t done for ten years.”
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"Oh smeg yes!"
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