The Fans That Destroyed The Earth

Who should play the next James Bond?

Why should fans of 007 pick the next performer to play the role? Are they so scared in Hollywood or that lazy?

Too often the Internets gets blocked up with What Fans Want.

Well, if a Fan of some genre or media knows so much, why are they just Fans? Can't they get the jobs to make the stuff that gets Fans?

Fans churn out reviews of movies and tv and books that are old, new and unmade - like they're possessed, and yet it's always about someone else's works. Fans even make videos of themselves opening packages of what they are Fans of, and those videos have millions of Fans.

Perhaps we shouldn't have provided Internets space to Fan Fiction, Fan Movies and Mashups, just insane niches that feed Fan Entitlement. ("My Little Pony" has, for instance, expanded and distorted into a weird mix of Salvador Dali and Larry Flynt.)

I get it - we make things from the artifacts of our lives. I've done it, but not in any coordinated Fan Horde Attacks.

And the Internets is a machine that builds Fans. See this "Sexts, Hugs, and Rock'nRoll" article about the ongoing DigiTour of ... well, never heard of these folks until now so I'll call them Internets Idols:

"With full lips, Bieber bangs, and piercing blue eyes, Hayes has the unsalted-butter looks of the love interest on a CW show or the villain in a John Hughes movie. He dresses in the superficially alternative but fundamentally nonthreatening uniform popularized by Urban Outfitters and adopted by every (white) Cool Guy in every high school in America: jeans, skate shoes, graphic T-shirt or baggy tank top with the armholes cut low. He speaks slowly and indistinctly, with a soft North Carolina accent. He has beautiful teeth."

And all he (Hayes) does is make Fans.

Fan demands of casting and scripting are ridiculous, media makers use them for publicity, but it's too far - look what happened to the simple science fiction awards known as Hugos: a weird Fan Coup has butchered the proceedings.

You're a Fan of something? Great. Shut up. I'm working here. 

Camera Obscura: The Sad Demise of George Lucas

It's sad to witness the strange demise of filmmaker George Lucas, who no only held great promise, but exploded the world of cinema and cinema fans with his original "Star Wars" trilogy, and then exploded the world of visual and audio effects with his breakout creations of Industrial Light and Magic. But that is all in the past, and here in the present, Mr. Lucas appears oddly lost and angry and I'm left to wonder what happened to him.

Yes, yet another fanboy critique of you and your work. I'm really sorry. I know it isn't anything you want to hear.

His company and he himself financed and released today a big-budget tale of the incredibly heroic World War 2 pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen titled "Red Tails". And he's been very vocal about what he sees as Hollywood's failure to support big budget movies with all-black casts. Indeed, he drafted the creators of "Undercover Brother" and "The Boondocks" to write and direct this movie. But his own goal was to created a sort of patriotic African-American John Wayne hero movie when I don't know that anyone - regardless of their race - wanted one. Hey, you want a tough, he-man African-American genre movie hero? Watch "Shaft". And that was decades ago, and now, audiences are just expecting more.

Or better, if Lucas wants to energize Hollywood to support African-American directors and writers and actors, then give them the financing and the whiz-bang effects and tell them "Make the stories and movies that you want to make."

After reading this lengthy interview with the angry and seemingly disconnected Lucas in the NYTimes I was left with the impression that he has somehow been diluted into a weird sort of Howard Hughes person. He had too much success, too much money, too fast and too soon. Lucas' has really hokey ideas about movies (not necessarily a bad thing) and has nurtured an incredible amount of technical development of cinema - but hates anyone who might challenge his decisions to make "Star Wars" anything except what he wants it to be. Fights with a world of fans? Really?

Midi-chlorian machine

Here's my own personal fanboy rant against how Lucas unwisely changed the intentions of his "Star Wars" tale -- the original film (now called Part 4) was a hero's journey, a young man takes on adventure and ideas (empires even!) far beyond his grasp and changes the world as a Jedi Knight. But in "The Phantom Menace" (aka Part 1), we learn, hey, to be a Jedi, you have to have the right genetic code (something Lucas wrote of as a high Midi-chlorian count in the bloodstream) in order to be special. Heroism or wisdom is not achieved through effort and work, it's just about being born with the right heritage. ?????

He's about to release (again) the entire movie series now in 3-D, and from Part 1 through Part 6. But if you tell (or see) this story out of the original order, there is no mystery as to who heroic Luke Skywalker and villainous Darth Vader are. None. So what story are we watching now? Not the ones which forever changed movies and movie audiences around the world.

Let's put it this way and compare some basic movie-making concepts --

Also being released theatrically today is a movie called "Haywire" by the director Steve Soderbergh (who also did the camerwork and the editing), and he's been a critic-approved director and a blockbuster-movie-franchise creator too, for many years. But he also makes small-budget, tightly wound action and thriller movies too. "Haywire" is mostly a karate/kung-fu action yarn - a straight-up genre movie, expertly made. He's done this type of thing before with the excellent crime thrillers "Out of Sight" and "The Limey".

Compare that with "Red Tails" - it too has rousing action scenes, yes, expertly made. But "Red Tails" comes from real-world events and that history is pretty much discarded here. "Haywire" ain't history, did not cost a fortune to make, and is based in fantasy. And Soderbergh has also taken on huge historical projects too, like "Che: Parts One and Two", which don't skimp on history or action and is a truly notable achievement.

From here in my movie fanboy seat, I can easily pick the better filmmaker, and he's probably a happy fellow too. So it is not George Lucas.

I still like his early films too - "THX-138" and "American Graffiti" are great movies (which Lucas hates). But after 1980 ... it's all been downhill.

Here are a few more examples you can watch tonight on Turner Classic Movies - both sharp, witty, exciting crime thrillers, expertly made, and expertly written and performed by using well-made characters in settings both imaginary and real, which are both popcorn movie fun and still manage to speak to real-world ideas, like technology and individuality.

First, at 10 pm "The Anderson Tapes" by Sidney Lumet. Sean Connery and an excellent cast plot a massive heist at a luxury apartment complex in NYC. Fresh from prison, none of them know how much every move is being tracked by casual and police surveillance sources.

That's followed by the original version of "The Taking of Pelham, One Two Three", about crooks pretending to be terrorists as they hijack a subway car in Manhattan. Every performance here stands out, major and minor, they move and sound like real New Yorkers and real crooks. The recent remake was awful - this version is hugely entertaining.

Camera Obscura: Goodbye Tura Satana

I'd have to turn in all my cult movie fan credentials if I failed to mourn the passing of cult cinema superstar Tura Satana, who fled this mortal plane on Feb. 4th.

With one single movie, "Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!", made in 1965, Tura created a performance which earned her a much deserved legendary status. The NYTimes blog notes that it was another legend of cinema, comedian Harold Lloyd, who urged her to go for a career in movies.

Goodbye and thanks, Tura.



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A 2011 Super Bowl commercial submitted without comment.



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Behold, the Actor With A Thousand Careers, William Shatner is prepping a full-on heavy metal album, with performances from:

"Peter Frampton and Mike Inez (who will be playing "Iron Man" with fellow Ozzy alum, Zakk Wylde) are definitely participating and our source claims artists slated to perform (but who haven't done their parts yet) include Steve Howe of Yes, Ian Paice of Deep Purple and the god among men, Brian May of Queen."

And since I've made reference to Star Trek, then you should also know the sci-fi franchise that will not die has now been immortalized in a potato format.

Camera Obscura: The Beatles Version of Lord of the Rings; Spielberg's New Sci-Fi TV Plans

In the mid-60s, John Lennon was apparently pushing hard to get the rights to make a 'Lord of the Rings' movie and also wanted Stanley Kubrick to direct. It all sounds bogus to me, as Kubrick had not made his special effects opus "2001" yet.

But several folks agree the plan was for John to play Gollum, Paul for Frodo, George for Gandalf and Ringo for Sam. Reports claim that it was Tolkien himself who refused to go along with it. So, in honor of what might have been, the above poster was created and more posters are offered here.

The Beatles were keen on getting some more cinematic efforts underway, including a version of The Three Musketeers and providing music for Disney's 'The Jungle Book". A complete list of other failed film projects is here.

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i09 has a full rundown on all the fantasy and science-fiction shows ahead in 2011 here.

Most interesting in my view - two produced by Steven Spielberg. First up, scientists and soldiers flee a dying Earth in 2149 and travel back in time to prehistoric Earth. The series is called "Terra Nova" and set to debut in mid-summer.

The other show is about life on Earth after aliens invade, titled "Falling Skies".

Camera Obscura: Twin Peaks Reunion; Jeff Bridges As John Wayne; Fulci's 'The Beyond'

For one hour this week immense joy was created by television, as the great "Twin Peaks" show got a most entertaining reunion of sorts thanks to the USA Network series "Psych". Cast members from Peaks assembled for a comic poke at their iconic work, with plenty of references to pie and coffee. Oh, television, will you ever make something as good as "Twin Peaks" again?

NOTE: details about the episode, a commentary and more are here, and kudos to series star James Roday for writing this episode and gathering all the Peaks actors he could. Have a slab of pie James, you deserve it.

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Jeff Bridges storms the cinemas this month with two movies which are both re-inventions of previous movies, one in which he starred he some 30 years ago and one where he takes on John Wayne.

I'm a bit more keen to see the second one, a remake of Wayne's Oscar-winner "True Grit" since it is the newest work from James and Ethan Coen, two of the best filmmakers in America. The Coen's version follows the novel by Charles Portis more closely, making better use of Portis' dialog. The way people speak is always a central feature in the Coen brothers films. And while many films have been made over the years aiming to mimic a John Wayne movie, as best I can tell this is the first time someone has done a straight-up remake. (Well, other than a very, very bad TV movie from 1978 called "True Grit" with Warren Oates in the Rooster Cogburn role in a sort of "continuing adventures of" story which is far worse than it sounds.)

Early reviews are quite tantalizing - "Let's get this out of the way right now: Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld own this film, every inch of it. The entire cast is fantastic, with special kudos to Josh Brolin and an unrecognizable Barry Pepper (see if you can spot him), but there's not a moment that goes by in the film when you're not itching to see Bridges' Marshal Reuben J. Cogburn and Steinfeld's Mattie Ross share the screen. The two make up the most memorable on-screen duo we've seen all year -- a beaten-up, smelly, drunken U.S. Marshal and a whip-smart 14-year-old negotiator -- and every scene they share is one you're going to want to watch again. One particular scene early in the film, which sees young Mattie Ross trying to sell back the horses her recently-assassinated father bought, is flawlessly executed and effortlessly charming."


The other new Bridges movie is a sequel to his 1982 Disney film "Tron", titled "Tron Legacy". The first film was pretty weak overall, but for myself (and for many others) the ideas in the movie were always quite inventive - a hacker is physically transported inside to the inside of a computer. The tech just did not exist in 1982 to bring the story the wow factor it needed, and the script was weak, but it has remained a sci-fi touchstone ever since.

In 2010, filmmakers have the wow factor down. And the sequel gets a great boost from the techno music throbbing rhythms of Daft Punk. Director Joseph Kosinski is also working on a remake of Disney's terrible space adventure "The Black Hole", so he surely has much riding on these two films.

Speaking of Bridges though, I did watch his Oscar-winning role from last year as an aging, drunken country music singer in "Crazy Heart" and was not very impressed. The story is a paint-by-numbers tale with little originality, and such half-heartedness really doesn't give Bridges much to work with. However, I give him much credit for making the most of it. He has such natural style and talent, he often makes silk purses from sow's ears.

The Dude abides.
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Now let's get really obscure. Tonight/tomorrow at 2 a.m. Turner Classic Movies will air director Lucio Fulci's "The Beyond".

Fulci made some really cheesy and wonderful horror stories during his career, and many consider "The Beyond" to be his best. Director Quentin Tarantino helped revive the movie some years back and sent it round for midnight movies across the country and It arrives on TCM in all it's cheesy gory ... I mean glory.

Film critic Roger Ebert has the last word on this movie, which is about a woman who gets ownership of a New Orleans hotel only to find the basement is a doorway to hell. (And no, Lucio, there just are not any basements in New Orleans) Anyway, take it away Roger:

"The Beyond'' does not disappoint. I have already mentioned the scene where the tarantulas eat eyeballs and lips. As the tarantulas tear away each morsel, we can clearly see the strands of latex and glue holding it to the model of a corpse's head. Strictly speaking, it is a scene of tarantulas eating makeup.

In a film filled with bad dialogue, it is hard to choose the most quotable line, but I think it may occur in Liza's conversations with Martin, the architect hired to renovate the hotel. ``You have carte blanche,'' she tells him, ``but not a blank check!''

Camera Obscura: 'War, Inc." Rips Outsourced Warfare; Sundance Festival In Tennessee

Creating a satire on your own culture is a doubled-bladed dagger. Satirists seldom become lionized or praised for their efforts as pointing out failures and dangers and the ridiculous presence of deluded emperors wearing invisible clothes tends to invoke more embarrassment than wisdom or appreciation.

Sometimes greatness is achieved - most readers and critics still applaud Joseph Heller's "Catch-22" or "MASH" - the one made by Richard Hooker/Robert Altman and not by Alan Alda. Ripping into warfare means taking a huge risk and in cinema the best effort in the last 50 years remains Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove", though perhaps because the fear of nuclear warfare far is a wise human response. Plus, Doctor S. was made with truly talented folks.

This week I finally got to see the movie "War, Inc." which was produced, co-written and starring John Cusack, and released (briefly) in 2008. The movie that daringly tackles the current war being waged in Iraq and Afghanistan, though audiences and studios approach such fare with enormous reluctance.

No doubt, the comedy of errors and horrors by which we were led into these wars is ripe for ridicule. Still, lives are lost in those campaigns daily and is likely to continue for a long time to come. Give Cusack points for trying and carefully negotiating a path through the mess.

Cusack plays an despondent assassin named Brand Hauser who is forced into a bizarre power play in the mythical Middle Eastern nation of "Turaqistan" by his bosses at a Halliburtonesque company called Tamerlane, a corporation which has taken over the war and is headed by American ex-vice-president and sneeringly played with much skill by Dan Aykroyd. (Tamerlane was a 14th century conqueror of the Persian empire.)

Cusack's cover identity is to be the organizer of a massive trade show in Turaqistan by the nefarious Tamerlane, which sells advertising space on the sides of tanks and humvees, and the show includes amputee victims from the war making a turn as kick-dancing Rockettes with prosthetic legs (" ... just another breathtaking example of how American know-how alleviates the suffering it creates.").

Cusack's character often voices the goals of Tamerlane and that war means business - "What are we supposed to do? Turn our backs on all the entrepreneur possibilities? Business is a uniquely human response to a moral or cosmic crisis. Whether it's a tsunami or a sustained aerial bombardment, there's the same urgent call for urban renewal."

Not the kind of movie line destined to win hearts and minds in the American Heartland, is it?

Another memorable character in the movie is played by Hilary Duff (!!!) as a Middle Eastern Britney Spears named Yonica Babyyeah. Her wedding is supposed to be the highlight of the trade show, but she too is as despondent as Brand Hauser which means nothing goes as planned. Her character's entrance provides a glimpse of her stage act, as she sings a tune called "I Want To Blow You (Up)":

You say you want to invade me baby
You say you want to enslave me baby
(I want to blow you)
I want to blow you up

You say you want to free me baby
But you can not even see me baby
(I want to blow you)
I want to blow you up

I want to blow you sky high
Hi, goodbye
I want to blow you, blow you, blow you
Blow you up

You want to occupy my heart and soul
A black widow in a spider hole
(I want to blow you)
I want to blow you up

Yeah, the movie is in deep and strange waters both familiar and truly uncomfortable. It has a weird blend of comedy and horror, taking cues from other wartime satires ranging from the Marx Brothers to 1960s era movies like "The President's Analyst" and the 1970s era conspiracy nightmare "Winter Kills". There's a dystopian quality akin to "Brazil" mixed in there too and it's no wonder the studios and the audiences in America just could not seem to hold onto.

Perhaps in some future when the current war has faded, or when the nation gets a gut full of the insanity of corporate-led combat and rejects the idea, this movie will gain attention. I'm not holding my breath though. For as looney as the movie might seem, it includes some ugly truths that make it hard to hold very close.

BONUS SATIRE:

The short satiric rips seen daily via The Daily Show are always impressive. Last night, host Jon Stewart did a fantastic impression of Glenn Beck theorizing the healthcare conspiracy against Beck himself. It's a work of pure comedy gold:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The 11/3 Project
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

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Announcement was made this week that the Sundance Film Festival is going to expand into 8 cities across the country, including an exhibition in Nashville at the Belcourt Theatre. No films have been announced as of yet, but we'll keep you posted. Christian Grantham at Nashville Is Talking has the details.

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Word is the upcoming Oscar competition is having a tough time trying to fill out one category - Best Original Screenplay. The reasons are obvious to even the casual film fan - sequels and franchises make money but they ain't original:

"Original screenplays used to comprise the bulk of what Hollywood did. But ever since the studios became obsessed with remakes and sequels, there’s been a depletion of the kind of new ideas that once populated the category.... But the current lack of original screenplays might reinforce the negative trend: Studios don’t produce many, the Academy doesn’t have many to choose from, and then the category loses stature, further deterring studios from greenlighting those types of movies."

More at The Hollywood Reporter.

Camera Obscura: Comic-Con News; Miyazaki's 'Ponyo'; Scorsese's 'Shutter Island'

Filmmakers and fans and media reps from all corners have been busy at the Annual San Diego Comic-Con this week. When first held in 1970, a few hundred fans and comic creators attended and the event was barely noticed - except among fans and creators. And it grew quickly.

In the last few years, all major movie studios, every news agency, agents, actors, writers, artists, fans and fans and more fans swirl about the convention center in the must-see and must-be-seen event.

From Time magazine, writer Lev Grossman spoke with legendary animators Hayao Miyazaki and John Lassiter - though the newsman can barely contain his fan-boy appreciation for Miyazaki, whose newest animated feature (as always a hand-drawn movie) "Ponyo" is set to hit American theaters in a few weeks, boasting a cast of top name Hollywood talent:



Grossman writes:

"I find it doesn't help to get fanboyish in situations like this -- it just freaks famous people out -- so I keep it together, helped by Miyazaki's translator -- she's a calming presence. I'm not going to run through the whole interview, which I have to save for the print magazine for now. But we talked about where Ponyo came from -- she was a frog before she was a goldfish, and her story to some extent parallels that of the Little Mermaid, a story Miyazaki loved as a child, though he didn't like the ending. ... We talked about the cartoons Miyazaki loved as a little kid.

At the very end I broke character and thanked him for everything he's done, and how Totoro is the first movie my daughter and I really loved together. I am not a stone."

Fans get more than a chance to learn the latest news about projects they like, such as the long anticipated "Avatar" from director James Cameron, another long-in-planning production for a sequel to "Tron", the new movie "District 9" from producer Peter Jackson and they can get into a Q and A with some very famous directors (Sam Raimi, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez) on breaking into the business:



Cinematical and IGN have very complete coverage on just about all topics, panels and news from the Comic-Con.

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Director Martin Scorsese works once again with his favorite actor in recent years, Leonardo DiCaprio for "Shutter Island", based on a novel by Dennis Lehane and set in a grim (what else for Scorsese??) asylum for the criminally insane located on a island. The preview for the movie follows:

Camera Obscura: Harry Potter Returns; Comic-Con News; 'Futurama' Fail; 'District 9'

The newest Harry Potter movie opened this week with midnight shows and Cathy at Domestic Psychology has the skinny on what that event was like --

Midnight movies are fun, but I fall two days behind every time I do an all-nighter anything.

HBP doesn’t suffer from the “trying too hard” to be dark, funny or normal that previous installments had.

This movie has an inevitable destiny feel that makes each of the characters more interesting and more forgivable.

Calvinists will like this movie.

Be sure and read the full report. HP6, as my niece calls it, is breaking records already for box office earnings and is on track to earn even more (and there are still two movies left in the series).

Warner Brothers is looking to fill the soon-to-be Potter gap with a new series of movies based on another popular book series, this time it's writer Angie Sage's Septimus Heap series:

"Sage's seven-volume series shares a lot of similarities with young Potter. Septimus Heap is the seventh son of a seventh son, who possesses magical powers, and is apprenticed to ExtraOrdinary wizard, Marcia Overstrand. Naturally he must overcome many trials and tribulations in his magical training, and his life is a sharp contrast to that of his adoptive sister, Jenna, who gets to live in the comfort and security of the Heap household after a Skywalker sort of switcharoo. While she lacks magic powers, Jenna makes up for it by being a princess, and heir to the throne of Castle. The overarching villain of the story is necromancer DomDaniel, who is power hungry and up to no good, as all necromancers are. Unlike the Potter movies, Magick will be animated. Not only is that bound to be disappointing to fans, it's a pretty big departure for Frankel, who is best known for live-action flicks like Marley and Me and The Devil Wears Prada. "

Warners is also planning a big push for their TV schedule at next week's frenzied Comic-Con in San Diego. From "Smallville" to "Fringe" and "Vampire Dairies" a re-boot of the alien-filled "V" series and much more, all can be yours to review and inspect at their official web site.

Online sites are humming about the news too - which may be either confirmed or dispelled as wanton publicity hunting - that the return of the cult favorite animated "Futurama" series has hit a negotiations snag prompting the studio to promise to get rid of the entire cast of voice actors for the show and go for all new ones:

"We love the Futurama voice performers and absolutely wanted to use them, but unfortunately, we could not meet their salary demands. While replacing these talented actors will be difficult, the show must go on."

Bad move - though bloody typical for the idiots at Fox - if it is true, and perhaps it is just a stunt to gain some talk for the show.

Cinematical also has some preview pics of movies sure to be hot at Comic-Con - a new Iron Man, the next Twilight movie and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Check it out here.

Speaking of aliens, this trailer for the new movie "District 9", produced by Peter Jackson, looks just fantastic, It's set for an August release:



Speaking of alien movies, this week I saw one of my favorites from years past - itself a remake of a 1950s classic. "John Carpenter's The Thing" was one of several first class genre movies which came out in the summer of 1982. My brother and I saw this one summer day while in Erwin, TN in an older downtown theater which had just converted their balcony as a single screen. It was a jaw-dropping experience to watch the horror roll out on a gigantic screen in room with just a few dozen seats for the audience.

It's by far Carpenter's best movie and has a great soundtrack, and a great cast, featuring Kurt Russell trapped in the frozen Antarctic along with a bizarre alien who had been trapped for perhaps as long as 100,000 years before breaking loose. The creature is not cute or even remotely human, until of course, it begins to imitate humans. The alien is more like some weird Lovecraftian silly-putty with endless power and energy. And the cast of victims quickly discover how vile and ruthless this creature can be. Rob Bottin's special effects are likewise first-class.

If you've never seen it, it will curl up your hair and if you have seen it, it's worth seeing again.

Camera Obscura: True Blood Meets Bob Dylan;The Banal Vampire Diaries; New Sherlock Holmes Trailer; Goodbye David Carradine

Time again to delve into the strange world of movies and stories which fascinate me and many other movie fans. The weak-hearted might want to skip past this one.

It bugs me when I see news and magazine reports making the statement that "zombies are the new vampires". The two monsters are forever separate creatures, and while the popularity of one may rise (from the dead) and the other may fall, they remain two iconic forms of cinematic (and often literary) fear which have been invited into the homes and theaters of America and the world.

The share one similarity - humans are here only as a form of sustenance. That perhaps is why they endure as those truly nasty fears we seldom can shake away. And in my opinion, vampires are on the upside of fame these days - though zombies are close behind, always drawing near to haunt and chew on our thoughts.

On June 14th, the excellent HBO series "True Blood" returns for another season and I say hooray for that. The show is an eclectic mix of horror and satire, the acting is top-notch, and the twists and turns of the story always surprise (and get pretty steamy too). In a nutshell, the heroine of the tale, one Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), is a small town Louisiana gal who has the relentless burden of being able to read the thoughts of others. And she sort of has a boyfriend, known as Vampire Bill, who turned vamp during the Civil War and has a rather charming Southern politeness to his ravenous nature. Also, America and the world, have been given notice that vampires are real and are here to stay - demanding equal rights, since they have this nifty new chemical-based beverage called TruBlood which slakes their thirst for human blood. Of course, some vamps, known as Mainstreamers, are trying to blend into the normal world while other vamps denounce such efforts as cowardly. (Is a vamp war ahead? Or is this whole mainstream deal a massive hoax?)

As I suspected while watching the first season, there are far more supernatural oddities afoot in the Louisiana town of Bon Temps. Every character has secrets - some sad and some far more sinister. More of that will be revealed in the upcoming season. Nothing is what it seems - even drug dealers in the town sell vials of vamp blood to get high on and of course a newly created religious group has formed to battle the notion of equal rights for vamps and they are likewise dangerous creatures.

Catch up on the first season, now on DVD and get ready for a compelling and most unusual series. How many other vampire tales can promo their show with a tune by Bob Dylan?



On the more banal side of vampire tales is a new series being pushed on the CW Network (itself a hellish hybrid of the WB and UPN). Based on a series of books by LJ Smith, the series is called "Vampire Diaries" and is set in a high school -- this ain't Buffy, folks. Think Dawson's Creek meets Twilight. Or think The Mediocre Meets Hormonal Hijinks. Here's the web site, which says a popular high school gal falls for a new-kid-in-town vampire who happens to have an evil brother and they fight over the girl and the town in a ..... yawn. Sorry, I just lost all desire to even care to watch this. Hey, maybe they could have called it "Dawson's Hellmouth".

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OTHER MOVIE NEWS:

Thank goodness director Brett Ratner got the boot as director of a new live-action Conan The Barbarian movie. The new director (rumor) is one James McTeigue, who directed "V For Vendetta" and this fall's "Ninja Assassin" (scripted by J. Michael Stracynski). Of course, this is about the tenth attempt at a new Conan adventure in the last 4 years, so it's all guesswork at this point. Previously, Robert Rodriguez was slated to take the project, but he decided to produce a new movie based on another character created by the mighty Robert E. Howard, "Red Sonja", starring his girlfriend Rose McGowan -- whoops, make that his ex-girlfriend and place that movie in Limbo.

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A new trailer has arrived for the new Sherlock Holmes movie and -- well, just take a peek:


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Finally, a farewell to the late David Carradine.

I grew up watching his original "Kung Fu" series, which was the ultimate revision of those seemingly endless years of bad TV Westerns. He had no gun, no ranch to protect, no outlaws to hunt down, no card games to scam. The show made him more than famous and he re-invented the series a few times in later years, but was never near as good as the original.

His movies earned him the chance to work with Martin Scorsese ("Boxcar Bertha", "Mean Streets"), Robert Altman ("The Long Goodbye"), Hal Ashby ("Bound For Glory"), Walter Hill ("The Long Riders") and he made tons of cult films like "Death Race 2000", "Cannonball", "Circle of Iron", and countless others, including the upcoming summer horror film "Autumn" (and about 6 others still in production).

And of course, no one other than Carradine could have made the kind of Bill he made in "Kill Bill Volumes One and Two." His speech near the end of Vol. 2 about Superman is simply brilliant.

He could be a very difficult and obtuse performer. Back in March of this year, he attended a screening of "Bound For Glory", a film wherein he played the iconic Woody Guthrie. The evening was turned upside down, to say the least, by his odd behavior. Writer Chris Williams said of that night:

"Not since I saw Bill Irwin and Kathleen Turner go at each other in an excellent production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? a couple of years ago have I experienced a night of live theater quite as riveting as the three-way cage match between David Carradine, Haskell Wexler, and the audience the other night following an American Cinematheque screening. I keep alluding to what a nerve-wracking, weird and wonderful night this was, and I've gotten asked to go into detail about how the proceedings unfolded, or unraveled."


The full account of that evening is here.

Here is an interview with him from 2007 on the John Kerwin show, which includes a short clip which had been cut from "Kill Bill". And as always, David always knew how to surprise an audience.

Camera Obscura: Star Trek Redux; 'The Road' Trailer; Hollywood at the KMA

Way back in the long-ago times known as my childhood, if you were to visit my home and enter the rooms of either my sister or myself, you'd likely think we were pop culture junkies. Both of us, even back in those long-ago times of television-by-antenna-only and three networks only, dug as deep as we could.

While I had Aurora models of Frankenstein and Creature From the Black Lagoon, my sis had a wall of glossy black and white photos from a wide range of television shows - but the ones I recall most were from a show then being broadcast regularly on NBC called "Star Trek". (I kinda think she had a crush on Chekov.) My somewhat scattered memories of those times include images of a copy of the script for an episode from the second season titled "Assignment: Earth" which she had as well -- I think she had gotten that via the TV studio as well, but my memory may be weak and it may have been sometime later she had that script. Still, she was the first "trekkie" I knew.

(I also have vague memories of a few posters in my room, giant black and white posters of Raquel Welch in that fur bikini from "1 Million Years B.C." and of Steve McQueen astride a motorcycle from "The Great Escape".)

And though I have been way to busy the last week to see the newest "Star Trek" movie/franchise reboot, I know that many friends have seen it and liked it and some have taken their kids to see the movie, which is a pleasant notion, sort of passing the fandom down a generation. But I ran across some behind-the-scenes photos of the original show via MetaFilter which I really like --

Spock and 1965 Buick Riviera

Kirk and a what the heck car is that??

Kirk, Spock and some Space Babes

While many decades and many shows and movies have followed the original show, it's good to know my sis and I were hip long before anyone new Star Trek was hip.

OTHER MOVIE NEWS:

At long last, a trailer for the new movie "The Road", based on Cormac McCarthy's novel. (As noted on Cinematical - "According to Esquire, John Hillcoat's film is (and other reviews have borne this out) as quiet, harrowing, and bleak as the novel is, and may just be "the most important film of the year". Unfortunately, the Weinsteins feel no one will see it unless there's an "explanation" and a hook of kick ass action, even if the film itself lacks the things the trailer sells. But at least you get a glimpse of the real film underneath, which is enough to cause you to choke up.")

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Tonight on TCM, one of the very first ever Summer Blockbuster movies airs - "You Only Live Twice". This was the first James Bond movie to open in summer, back in 1967 and earned over $100 million at the box office. It's got spaceships, ninjas, a killer soundtrack and score, and it is also the only Bond scripted by creator Ian Fleming's longtime friend and fellow writer, Roald Dahl. There would never have been an Austin Powers or The Incredibles without this movie.

And stick around after the second Bond feature, "Diamonds Are Forever", to see the pairing of Sean Connery and a very young Christopher Walken in the very under-rated crime thriller "The Anderson Tapes". The story, told from a perspective of a society under surveillance long before such concepts were considered a daily reality. It's from director Sidney Lumet, with music by Quincy Jones and the film holds up very well today. (Trailer for the movie here.)

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A touring exhibit of classic Hollywood photos is on display now at the Knoxville Museum of Art. Drawn from the archives of the John Kobal Collection, it includes works by George Hurrell, Sincalir Bull, William Mortensen and many many more. The KMA has the exhibit until October, more on the photos is here via John Kobal's site. Some samples?

Camera Obscura: Dollhouse Still Here; 'The Hangover'; 'Extract'; A Salute to Hank Worden

First some news and then a tribute to one of the great character actors to ever hit the screen.

A Twitter comment from actress Felicia Day caused a mini-storm with a claim the new Joss Whedon show "Dollhouse" was about to be canceled. It is not - though Fox has no love for Whedon's work, the episode Day was in was not meant to be aired but will appear on the already planned DVD set. Of course, since Fox is prepping the set may well mean all we'll get is one season. Holding any decent ratings on a Friday night is tough - but the show is absolutely better and better each week.

Maureen Ryan at the Chicago Tribune has the skinny on the fan furor and the odd episode counting Fox is doing. Plus, she offers some advice to Whedon which I'd like to see him consider:

"My take is this: If "Dollhouse" is canceled, for the love of all that is holy, creator Joss Whedon should get out of business with the broadcast networks.

"Whedon needs to make his next show on cable. End of story."

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Speaking of odd TV decisions, I did watch the season finale of "Life On Mars", as ABC decided to cancel it abruptly. The writers created an ending for the series, which was vastly different from the way the original BBC series ended. The story of the show was about a policeman who is injured in the present and wakes up in 1973 working as a cop there too. He blends right in with everyone, he's trying to figure out what the heck happened and in the last episode he wakes up from a cryo-sleep chamber on a spaceship about to land on Mars. All the folks in his "dream scenario" were his fellow astronauts. That had to blow a few minds of viewers. When the DVD of this show comes out, it's worth a view, plus it has some absolutely fantastic music from the early 70s. And it has Gretchen Mol.

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Here's the most recent nominee for Terrible Ideas for a Remake - Tom Cruise and John Travolta want to remake "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid".

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Two new comedies on the way look very promising. In fact, the response to just the trailer for the new comedy "The Hangover" has been so strong they are already working on a sequel. It's from the director of "Old School" and the preview does show great promise. Check it out here.

Also on the way is the new comedy from Mike Judge. If you haven't seen his first movie "Office Space", do it immediately. It's one of the best comedies in the last 10 years. His previous movie "Idiocracy" is worthy of its cult following. His new one is called "Extract" and here's the trailer:


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No other actor has a resume as diverse as Hank Worden. Born in 1901, he turned to acting after a short run as a rodeo rider - in fact some 25 years after he left the circuit and was already a regular in the movies, a doctor notified him that his neck was broken from a fall off a horse during the rodeo days.

Most often, he played cowboy roles, usually in B-features, but when he made friends with director John Ford, he became a staple in all of Ford's westerns. He's likely most famous to movie fans for the role of Mose Harper in the classic "The Searchers". His character goes somewhat mad in the head after an Indian attack and longs for just a rocking chair and a roof over his head. But his dialog and his unusual style of halted speech transforms him into a near-Shakespearean character, a jester who dispenses wisdom and warnings.

As with many character actors in the early 60s, he moved into television work and the list of actors he worked with is astonishing: Brando in "One-Eyed Jacks", Clint Eastwood on "Rawhide", just to name a few. In TV, he was often on "Daniel Boone", "Green Acres", "Bonanza", and "Knight Rider", just to name a few. And he kept plowing away - his face, his voice, his mischievous eyes and grin were unforgettable.

One TV role I remember was an episode of Rod Serling's "Night Gallery". It was a short bit, about a hippie who winds up in Hell, and Hell turns out to be a single room, with a jukebox playing an annoying song over and over. And there in the corner, in a rocking chair, is Hank Worden, droning on and on about odd stories, like the winter the "baby got the croup", or what he's been reading in the Farmer's Almanac.

And Worden kept making movies - he's in the very awful "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", "Every Which Way But Loose," "Runaway Train" -- and he concluded his career on "Twin Peaks", during the second season where he played a waiter in 4 or 5 episodes (see image below). Who else can boast a career like that? Hank died in 1992 and The Movie Morlocks blog at TCM has a great post about his career you can read here.

Camera Obscura: All Hail Clint Howard; Turner Classic Turns 15; New Warren Oates Bio

Trolling through the murky and uncharted oceans of obscure cinema, I came across an animated movie from director Rob Zombie awaiting release which he describes as "like if SpongeBob and Scooby-Doo were filthy". The movie is "The Haunted World of El Superbeasto". Based on Zombie's comic book work, it captured my attention when I noticed actor Clint Howard provided the voice in this R-rated romp for a character called Joe Cthulhu. (Also adding voices to the movie are Rosario Dawson, Paul Giamatti, and frequent Zombie- actors Bill Mosley, Sid Haig, and Sherrie Moon-Zombie.)

Clint Howard deserves some kind of award (apart from Lifetime Achievement Award given him by MTV) for a relentless longevity in TV and movies, and not just in movies by his bro, Ron Howard. The first time I saw this odd little fellow was when he played an odd little fellow in the original Star Trek series in an episode titled "The Corbomite Maneuver".

And he still kinda looks like he did way back then in 1966. Clint had already entered TV history by that point, if only for playing the sandwich-eating Leon on The Andy Griffith Show. And he has some 200 credits now, playing in many cult and mainstream movies - from "Rock and Roll High School" and "Get Crazy" to providing the voice of Roo in the Oscar-winning "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day" to working with Henry Fonda and Maureen O'Hara in "The Red Pony".
The L.A. Record published this fine interview with the legendary performer late last year -

"With the remakes and film versions of Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, Star Trek, and Arrested Development currently in the works, have you been contacted to reprise any of your roles?
No, and I’m certainly willing. In all seriousness, I am a working actor. It’s what I do for a living. I’m not a professional celebrity—I’m a professional actor. If any of those directors call and are interested in finding a place for me, I certainly would be interested because I like to work."

Here's to a very long and happy career, Clint.

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Three cheers for Turner Classic Movies which marks their 15th year of broadcasting classic cinema. To help celebrate, the cable network has selected 15 movie fans from across the country to serve as guest programmers, an enviable task as they get to plow through the vast library of movies at TCM and pick their favorites to share with the world.

I am one of the lucky Americans whose first encounter with movies took place in a giant palace, not some boxed up multi-plex of uniformly drab black rooms. Going to a movie meant leaving all trappings of normal life behind, entering an architectural marvel, perhaps based on ancient Egyptian temples or an art-deco opera house, a place where the lobby was bathed in the aromas of real popcorn and real butter, where an usher guided us to our plush seats and we sat in front of a massive stage faced with a deep vermilion curtain which slide back as the lights dimmed and all of us in the audience were drawn into a world beyond imagining.

Happy birthday, TCM.

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Warren Oates was indeed a chameleon - known for so many roles and never one to seek the spotlight in the press. He does finally get some long-deserved attention in the new biography, Warren Oates: A Wild Life by Susan Campo.

This website is devoted to his life and work and is most comprehensive, with essays, interviews and a huge list of his work in TV and film. Nailing down why he is such a memorable actor is nearly impossible, so much of what he did was simply in how he moved, how he did not talk. This essay says it well:


"Oates could glower, furrow his brow and pull in his lip as skillfully as Fred Astaire could dance or Cary Grant could grin. A good ol' boy from the coal-mining town of Depoy, Ky., Oates reached Hollywood by way of the Marines, the University of Louisville and odd jobs in New York. Even in an age of easy riders and easy pieces, Oates' confusion had special resonance. His scowl, which could suggest anything from bereavement to amusement, most often signaled a mixture of anger, befuddlement and defeat in the midst of a modern world that was passing beyond any individual's powers of understanding. Oates said he didn't feel at home in cities and had a strong sense of cultural dislocation, which he used to fuel his work. Rawboned and sturdy, yet fuzzy around the edges, with a malleable face that seemed to have a built-in squint, Oates rarely tried to shake his rustic look. He appeared to slouch even when he was walking tall."

Camera Obscura: Nate Silver Predicts The Oscars; Fans Put Whedon in Orbit

The baseball and politics stats analyst and mega algorithm maker Nate Silver has turned his machine and his mind towards Sunday night's Oscar awards. (Though no predictions on whether or not the show will actually attract or interest viewers in general. More on that later. And more later on Weirdest Oscar Nominations.)

Hollywood and the AMPAS folks seem a most likely area for Silver to root around in, as it blends the elements of politics (of the studios and guilds) and baseball's emotional resonance as an American pastime all into one stew. Silver posted his take at his blog FiveThirtyEight, and expanded on how he came to his choices in a story for New York Magazine here.

"Formally speaking, this required the use of statistical software and a process called logistic regression. Informally, it involved building a huge database of the past 30 years of Oscar history. Categories included genre, MPAA classification, the release date, opening-weekend box office (adjusted for inflation), and whether the film won any other awards. We also looked at whether being nominated in one category predicts success in another. For example, is someone more likely to win Best Actress if her film has also been nominated for Best Picture? (Yes!) But the greatest predictor (80 percent of what you need to know) is other awards earned that year, particularly from peers (the Directors Guild Awards, for instance, reliably foretells Best Picture). Genre matters a lot (the Academy has an aversion to comedy); MPAA and release date don’t at all. A film’s average user rating on IMDb (the Internet Movie Database) is sometimes a predictor of success; box grosses rarely are. And, as in Washington, politics matter, in ways foreseeable and not."

I'd say he's right on the most part, but seldom do folks who predict the Oscars score 100%. Here is the breakdown:

Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight (86% chance of victory)
Best Supporting Actress: Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (51% chance of victory)
Best Actor: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler (71% chance of victory)
Best Actress: Kate Winslet, The Reader (68% chance of victory)
Best Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire (99.7% chance of victory)
Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire (99.0% chance of victory)

I have to say a word here about Heath Ledger.

I hope he wins for his performance as The Joker in "The Dark Knight". He sadly died prior to the film's release (which jump-starts the emotions, true enough), but his work on screen really defines that movie and is the most notable performance I've ever seen in the sub-genre of superhero/comic-book movies. His work is deceptive. done with such seemingly effortless ease which is in reality a very studied and carefully controlled performance. And he really fills out the notion of what a Villain does in all tales of Good vs Evil -- create chaos for it's own sake, challenge every element of what Good there may be in the world, and as Batman's longtime friend and butler Alfred explains: "He thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."

In many ways, it was a once in a lifetime performance, a benchmark which others will try for some time to reach and surpass.

In a related Oscar-buzzing idea, I ran across a simple question about their Best Picture winners: how many (if any) of those movies do you watch often? Just at a glance, I know that the winners and many nominees from the 1970s are movies I've seen often and will see again -- Patton, The French Connection, The Godfather, Godfather Part 2, The Sting, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - to name a few. (Of course, two I will never see again won that decade, The Deer Hunter and Kramer vs Kramer, both movies of mediocre value today). Nominees include Star Wars, Chinatown, Jaws, Nashville, A Clockwork Orange, American Graffiti, Network, Taxi Driver, etc etc.

The 1980s list sure seems proof there was very little of worth to watch outside of a few exceptions, like Amadeus or The Last Emperor. Who seeks out repeated viewings of "Chariots of Fire" (the winner in 1981) versus a competing nominee like "Raiders of the Lost Ark"?

And for the first time in, like, ever, they have an actual actor hosting the show - Hugh Jackman, who has been hosting the Tony awards for several years, has an accomplished stage background and even takes roles like the comic-book cult hero of Wolverine of The X-Men. Is that enough to attract an audience? I doubt it. It's usually the movies nominated that determine how large the audience for the broadcast will be. And awards shows in general are falling in viewership.

I watch because I am an unrepentant movie-addict.

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Fanboys and girls like myself are making NASA jump to our tune. They recently announced a chance for folks to vote on what name should be given to Node 3 of the International Space Station, asking just as they have for the other two (named Unity and Harmony). This time, fans of Joss Whedon and his sci-fi TV show "Firefly" and the movie from it "Serenity" got the name "Serenity" on the list of nominees for Node 3.

When I looked this morning, Serenity is winning with 89% of the vote. You can vote too, until March 20th, at this link (voting box is on the lower right hand side of the page).

Take that, Science!!

And be sure and tune in tonight for the continuing episodes of Whedon's new show "Dollhouse". (NOTE: I am not saying this show is spectacular, but I will watch at least five or six of them before I assume to give it praise or not. Just sayin' ...)

The Spaceship Serenity from 'Firefly'

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Just a bit more Oscar oddities for your review -- Did you know that nominated movies include:

"SHANKS, a bizarre, macabre fantasy about a deaf mute puppeteer (Marcel Marceau) who learns how to revive and manipulate the dead via an electrical gizmo. Alex North’s music was nominated for Best Original Dramatic Score."

or that --

"CHARIOT OF THE GODS nominated for Best Documentary?"

These and others get a thorough review at the Movie Morelocks Blog. Quick, which Steven Seagal movie was nominated for an Oscar??

Camera Obscura Part 2: Dollhouse Tonite; New Tarantino Trailer; Denzel vs Travolta

Since today is all about sequels at the movies, I made sure I had a sequel movie post. And there's some great twists ahead.

Tonight at 9 p.m., a terrible time slot for ratings, the FOX network will start the brand new series from Joss Whedon, "Dollhouse." I am still amazed that Whedon agreed to work with FOX again, after the way they dumped "Firefly" into the ash heap before it even aired. But Dollhouse star Eliza Dushku had a deal with him and she wanted to do another show with Josh after her career-starter with him as the bad-girl vamp slayer named Faith in "Buffy".

So, after some serious problems and re-shoots the series lands at 9 p.m. Tracking Whedon's career is a real lesson in how the business end of Hollywood works and how the creative end works - often at cross-purposes. Even last year, as Hollywood worried thru a Writer's Strike, Whedon crafted an end run around the mess with an Internet-Only mini-series sci-fi musical with the improbable name of "Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog" which became a smash hit on iTunes and DVD.

So now - "Dollhouse" -- the pitch here is a series about a group of young people who are utilized by a shadowy (government?) organization as agents for various missions via a method of DNA-alterations and mind-wipeouts. They are 'dolls', called "Actives", who get fed mission info and key personality traits for missions, get it all erased at the end, and sort of live in a weird dorm complex. Dushku plays a girl named "Echo".

Yeah, I know audiences and FOX execs are going "whaa?" to all that. But the man has proved more than once he can take a jumble of genres and styles and make something pretty unique and entertaining. And the word complex scares TV people.

In an interview with Salon, Whedon talks about the confusion and the plans for the series, which gets into some fairly intense stuff ... though not at first glance:

"Well, the question of whether they've actually volunteered or not is obviously somewhat dicey. And as we'll begin to learn, every Active has a different backstory. What I wanted to do was talk about the idea of sex and what we expect from each other. Power, love, how these things are all connected. We're positing the idea of, if people were in a position to give up their lives, how many of them would?

We saw a thing on "This American Life," where guys had found a way to block a memory stream on mice and they got flooded with letters from people begging them to be test subjects, because they were like, I don't want to remember my life. Something bad happened or I want to cut out something. There is also this fantasy of not having control, of not having responsibility. These people are taken care of like children. They live in the best spa ever.

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"I think television is getting smarter and dumber at the same time. As it gets harder for the networks to figure out how to make their money and what's going to happen structurally with advertising, at the same time, on cable and even on some of the bigs, people are taking chances. It's a time of crisis, which means a lot of entrenching, a lot of let's just go for exactly what we know how to do, and a certain amount of let's shake it up. And those will be the shows people remember."

Read the full interview here, and their review here. As for me, I figured out long ago, he makes things worth the time it takes to read or watch.

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Warning!!! The following trailer, while not R-rated, is from the gritty and explosive brain of Quentin Tarantino and his new World War II movie, "Inglourious Basterds". Heck, with that title, I'm not even sure he can advertise the thing on TV or in newspapers. But we have the Internet, we have You Tube, and whether anyone wants or deserves it --- now we have Tarantino tackling the Big One. Brad Pitt calls out the marching orders:

I think Tarantino turns a lot of folks off - but, like Whedon, I'm gonna be watching what he does. And is it just me, or does Pitt sound a little bit like George W. Bush there??

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A best-selling novel and movie from the 1970s has been remade for summer 2009 release, "The Taking of Pelham 123" -- a tense tale of a subway hijacking. The original still holds up very well today thanks to acting from Walter Matthau as a subway supervisor against terrorist Robert Shaw.

The remake puts Denzel Washington into Matthau's part and John Travolta in Shaw's. This adaptation is by Oscar winner Brian Helgeland and the director is Tony Scott, which means lots of rapid cuts and edits and somehow, doves and pigeons flying will be shown at various points in the movie. I think this is the 3rd time Denzel and Tony have teamed up, and to be honest, I like what they've done so far. Here's the preview:

Camera Obscura: Anime, Kung-Fu, Texas Hold Em and Werner Herzog

Actor Keanu Reeves will leap into anime if his current project continues to move forward -- the project being a live action version of the anime series "Cowboy Bebop" with Reeves starring as the laconic hero Spike Spiegel.

Urf. This is not really happy news. I was hoping for another animated feature from the series which ran for 26 episodes in 1998. The story is set in a science fiction world of bounty hunters, but the real pleasure came from the characters and their failures and successes - and the arc of the story is rather non-linear and goofy, an anti-action tale with anti-heroes, a genius dog named Einstein and a computer whiz child named Ed. It's oddity is endearing, but I truly doubt Hollywood can do anything at all worthy of the time and money they'll throw at this.

Do yourself a favor and watch the original series, the one feature they made and be happy with that perfection.

Hollywood sort of flirts with animation and comic book tales - especially if they make money. Does that mean the just-announced Oscar nominations for Heath Ledger as The Joker, and the other nominations for "The Dark Knight" will actually earn the award itself? (Oh boy, here I go on comics again. Fanboy rants and raves about comic books are akin to those tedious scenes in "High Fidelity" where the characters talk about music and records. It's full-blown nerdiness.)

Here's what I know - Ledger's performance was surely one of the best I saw all year. And with Hugh "Wolverine" Jackman hosting this year's awards, maybe the comic book is finally --- naw, Hollywood loves money first and last. (Though Oscar does love tragedy, such as Ledger's untimely death last year.)

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Via the pages of Topless Robot (a blog about toys and nerds which is on my daily must-read list) we get the new trailer for a kung-fu movie called "Chocolate". It is absolutely my kind of Valentine's Day flick:



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Texas Hold-Em poker has never been more popular - and a raft of comedians get a chance to create a mock tournament improv movie in the often-hilarious "The Grand". The cast includes a grizzled Gabe Kaplan (who is a bona fide player on the poker circuit these days) as a deranged dad of two in the movie, and former SNL player Chris Parnell, a math genius player who also hurls insults culled from books like "Dune" at the other players. The movie is a broad and scattershot work, but has tons of funny performances and crazy moments -- Michael McKean recalling how he lost his hearing after he swam into a school of Man of War jellyfish, for example.

The real jewel in this movie, the one that makes it an underground classic, is director Werner Herzog, who plays a cruel contestant, known only as "The German". Herzog and "Grand" director Zak Penn have worked together before in also hilarious mockumentary "The Loch Ness Incident". Check out all the familiar faces in the trailer:



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Let's talk horror movies -- or rather horror movie music.



Blogger rhsmith at The Movie Morlocks blog from Turner Classic Movies gives us the rundown on some hefty collections of music from horror movies from days long past and has an encyclopedic knowledge of all kinds of spooky music and how said music landed on vinyl.

Read his full post here.

Smith also has a great list of pop music used in the movies in highly original ways. It's a trend I go for too - often bringing whole new legions of fame to old (or new) pop songs. Like the way the song "Mad World" infects everything in the movie "Donny Darko."

Smith offers a list of his favorites in this post, a collection of tunes and movies which is easily as nerdly as the above mentioned discussions of comic books. Read his list of favorites here.