While Gerry Anderson made puppets dance amongst intricate models, Irwin Allen made actors emote through not-so-intricate storylines. Meh. I just liked the titles:
PS: Sorry about the first 3 seconds… YouTube kyboshed this episode due to copyright encoding within the video signal. Fair Use!
She’s handed over her master audio tapes to DJ Earworm to work his/her magic. Then they’ve both made them available on Youtube and other digital mediums. Revel in the new economy!
Via Boingboing
We here in Canada thankfully haven’t been bombarded with the creepy girl Pre cell phone commercials. If you haven’t seen it yet, this, via Gizmodo is pretty good place to start.
She looks like a cross between a Minority Report Pre Cog and Julianne Moore after being dipped in milk. Ironically she’s Canadian.
This remix makes me curl up into a ball. That and think “Hey Michael J Fox is looking great!”
Not an actual trailer, this was shown at a comic-con last year and has been floating around in bootleg, lowrez since, but Disney has started to make a Tron sequel with a couple Lost writers. Love the digitized “young” Jeff Bridges at the end. Scanned in Canada you say? Pity!
There’s a little thing called ComicCon going on somewhere in geek heaven and over on Io9.com, a lucky blogger relates 25 minutes of James Cameron’s long awaited 3D zuggarat Avatar. You remember James? Big in the 80s? Like Michael Jackson, Avatar is to be James’ big comeback but without the shady painkillers addiction.
A room of assembled newbie soldiers are sitting in a room in Pandora’s Hell’s Gate station while the grouchy, Na’Vi-hating Colonial Quaritch explains their new mission. “You’re not in Kansas, anymore. You’re in Pandora.” Everything on Pandora he explains, is deadly. Every plant and animal out there “wants to kill you and eat your eyeballs. Worst of all are the Na’Vi, who are designed for survival, their bones reinforced with natually (sic) occurring carbon fiber.
“My job,” he continues, “is to keep you alive. I won’t succeed —” he waits a beat “— not for all of you.”
I can’t decide if the description isn’t well written or I’m just not interested. The play by play rambles on, telling us the paraplegic hero, while “driving” his “avatar” around this hospitable world, is saved by a (sexy?) female native. Diving into the comments I find salvation:
Don’t get me wrong, sounds awesome. But *sniff, sniff – looks around in alarm* I smell Dances With Wolves. – danield3013
Cameron took too long developing this project that uses sci fi concepts that were amazing 10 years ago, causing it to loop back onto itself and implode, hype-wise. Meanwhile he wraps an old story around the 3D tech Disney has already perfected in UP. Think Aliens meets Pocahontas meets Fern Gully. While he was technologically navel gazing, we’ve seen South Park make fun of shut ins using avatars in their brilliant WoW episode an very soon we’ll see Bruce Willis running around in his own avatar in a wig, but without the pioneer-guilt built in:
Jason Torchinsky is guest blogging over on BoingBoing.net and writes a mini-rant about improbable video games with a FTW ending. He did a couple goofy cabinets to show a game developer’s crowd and the Dynasty one got me thinking I’d like to see some movies (and one topical subject) made into retro-arcade games:
Finally, if you want to play, here’s a blank cabinet!
I was waiting for the subway today and across from me was the poster for the movie The Orphan. I have no desire to see it but the poster had me staring at it. Intently.
I couldn’t figure out why the image was so creepy, other than the obvious “Children of the Corn” vibe for brunettes. Then it hit me: the kid has been mirriored vertically:
Nobody’s face is a perfect copy of itself from one side to another and we’re designed to search out imperfections to that effect when we meet people. The poster designer is a psychological genius!
I’ve cut the image, flipped it and made it slightly transparent. You can see by my adroit animation, other than some minor blemishes, that’s exactly what they’ve done:
Yet another novel that shaped my life is being raped into a movie…
Wired has a great story of “unfilmable” movies (see the Watchmen 3 hr DVD release thingy tie in they did there?) and on the list is Neuromancer, by William Gibson. Part way through they link to a Seven Arts press release of old Neury in pre-production with Torque director Joseph Kahn dropping all his rock video projects so he can direct. Much comparison to the Canadian tax write-off Johnny Mnemonic is made (Neuromancer producer Peter Hoffman was a “presenter” for Mnemonic, whatever that means).
Yikes.
Double yikes goes to the news of Hayden Christiansen joining the cast, most likely as Case, the strung out anti-hero hacker.
“Wintermute, please play audio file DarthYellsNOOOO.wav on a continuous loop until my ears bleed.”
Via the handsome and informative @iMoose, via Twitter.
Okay listen up people. I am completely sick of the influx of “gold for cash” commercials on TV these days. Toronto television is beset with these low budget commercials depicting shady looking people urging you to come to their strip-mall outlets with your family memories in hand to get rich quick.
The commercial for “Jewellery For Cash” (original, eh?) has an obese bald dude getting out of an 80’s Ferrari in front of his second story walk up store front, emblazoned with “Cash for Gold” neon in the windows, while the voice over proudly offers loans up to (and I shit you not) “$1,000,000”. Okay first off, if they can offer that much, why are they in a commercial row-house, second floor office? Security for all that cash, I guess. And secondly, you’d think this guy could afford a tailor instead of a Sears XXXL t-shirt. By the way, isn’t it illegal to carry more than $100K out in public? How’s he going to get you $1M in cash? Under his shirt?
Second up was Sharkboy’s favorite, is Harold the Jewelry Buyer, where people gleefully confess their greedy desires after selling off their heritage to this dirty nailed, greasy midget. “I love my new TV!” shouts a gap toothed couch potato (it’s small). “We’re going on a cruise!” bellow a lonely housewife as her partner dances in an ugly Hawaiian shirt behind her. And the best scene: a bag laidened shopper is videoed in front of some mall stairway as she does the most awkward dance ever, while lamely shouting “Woo hoo.” I can only describe the lameness of it by saying imagine Rida Rutner cheering and dancing. I’m sorry there’s no video to accompany this one because the best line (probably delivered by Harold’s off-the-boat Romanian mom) is “It was so easy. Now I’m ready to shop!” with “shop” coming out as “chop”, evoking zombie fantasies.
Third up is Buster’s Brampton where judging by the utter tounge-in-cheek directorial wetnoodleness of this video, the next budding Judd Apatow/Kevin Smith is probably brewing right now. Slovenly, fat clerks promise “Maximum Cash!” at the tops of their lungs as their guts flap in the breeze. Watch the chubby guy on the right at the beginning of this clip – he’s wishing there was a snack truck on this shoot:
Of course, I can’t mention awful gold commercials without a nod to the grand daddy of Cash For Jewelry hucksters: Russel Oliver. To be fair, he’s got to be the most creative. Even after DC Comics tried to sue his ass out of existence for using a Superman costume and calling himself The Cashman in one of his commercial, he still manages to churn them out. If he’s not pedophilically scaring Halloween kids (he dumps money into their treat bags) then he’s dancing with Ho’s. Truly he is the Michael Bay of Cash For Gold commercials. Not to mention topical: he pulled this commercial just days after Diana died:
And finally, my current fave: Oren. So casual he doesn’t need a tie. So suave the ladies gush as they hand over their belongings. So sure he’ll give you the best price he leaves his shirt dangerously unbuttoned like it was the 70s. I love how he watches the cougar leave his store with a leer frozen across his unshaven face and akimbo stance that says “I’ll see you later, ladies! Ka-chow!”. I made a remix of the part that makes SharkBoy sit up and take notice: