It's been a while since we looked at any Trek casting news, but here's what we know so far:
Regular readers (or those who are in the know) already know that Heroes' Zachary Quinto is New Spock, Leonard Nimoy is back as Old Spock, and Anton Yelchin is New Chekhov. But there is newer news!
Zoe Saldana (Pirates of the Caribbean) will be playing Uhura. She looks right and is a pretty good actress. Maybe she'll get to do more than just answer the spacephone this time around.
And the big new rumor is that some guy named Mike Vogel will be playing Captain James T. Kirk. Normally, I don't go out for a lot of these rumors, but the guy is in director J.J. Abrams' upcoming Cloverfield movie, and an announcement on this particular bit of crucial casting should be coming right about now - filming on Star Trek will begin very soon. Vogel doesn't really have anything impressive on his resume apart from Cloverfield, but maybe not having any preconceived notions about him is a good thing? I don't know. It's better than Justin Timberlake.
Rumors that I don't put a lot of faith in include Matt Damon as Kirk (already disproven); Heroes' Masi Oka as Sulu (come on fanboys, at least pick someone more likely, like maybe James Kyson Lee or something); James McAvoy as Scotty (I think he's brilliant, but not sure he's right for the role); and the rumor that refuses to die, Gary Sinise as McCoy (interesting, but improbable). One thing that isn't a rumor is the attempt to get William Shatner involved somehow; this will only happen if the screenwriters can find a way for it to make sense within the story.
Find a way for it to make sense within the story, guys.
When last we left the saga of Knight Rider, producer Glen Larson was trying to get a feature film adaptation off the ground. But now MSN reports that Doug Liman (director of Swingers, Go, and The Bourne Identity) is going to take a shot at producing a TV movie as a backdoor pilot for a new Knight Rider series.
Is this cool? Maybe, but one thing MSN reported sounds weird to me. According to the article,
The success of Transformers had a role in inspiring NBC Entertainment chief Ben Silverman's decision to revive Knight Rider. The thinking is that small-screen special visual effects have advanced to the point where it'd be feasible to have a weekly series in which cars shift shapes.
Now, I hope they don't plan on making KITT do crazy transformation things apart from his usual gadgetry, because if they want to go crazy like that they should maybe just make a GoBots show. If Kitt turns into an anthropomorphic robot and starts running around looking for the AllSpark, I'm leaving.
No word on whether David Hasselhoff will be involved, but I'm sure they'll get some twenty-something smart-alec reject from The O.C. to drive KITT around and save the world every week.
The best example of an internet meme is the once-ubiquitous All Your Base Are Belong To Us. All Your Base is what happens when a 1989 Japanese video game (in this case a Sega game called Zero Wing) gets translated into Engrish. Who brought the All Your Base phenomenon to the interwebs? It's difficult to track down the initial culprit, but we do know that the fad became popular around 2001, when a Flash version of the game's introductory scene spread round the interwebs like gangrene, followed by Photoshopped images of the phrase in various locations which began popping up on forums all over the interwebs. Basically, the early days of All Your Base are chronicled in this video:Almost as hilarious is when FOX News tried to explain All Your Base to its audience of bewildered right-wingers:These days, All Your Base isn't as big as it was, but you can still find All Your Base grafitti around if you look hard enough for it. But the phenomenon spread in many diferent ways - like the time some guy in North Carolina hacked the local TV station's school-closings ticker (this is not Photoshopped):So if you keep your eyes open, you might see some All Your Base action where you least expect it. WATCH THE SKIES.
But I think this is the final word on internet memes right here:I think my brain just exploded.
So there's this college student named Brian Collins who filled in at the last minute for his school's news sports segment. He was not very good at it. The poor kid was out of his element. The enduring part of this tragic spectacle was Collins' catchphrase "boom goes the dynamite."Someone somehow thought it was funny that this guy was all nervous on camera, and got the broadcast out on the interwebs, where more people saw it and people started saying "boom goes the dynamite." It's similar to the thing where one of the guys on ESPN's SportsCenter would occasionally say, "it's levitation, homes!" and people started using it and thinking it was some kind of obscure Sherlock Holmes reference, but it was obvious where it came from to anyone that had heard Tenacious D's "Wonderboy", especially since the same sportscaster would also say, "That's telekenesis, Kyle!" A lot of memes get started on SportsCenter, which could be a whole other week's worth of memes (or more), but we won't get into that right now because we're talking about internet memes not SportsCenter memes.
While Collins himself never reached any great interweb fame from his phrase (there used to be an interview with Collins from one of the morning news shows, but I can't find it on the tubes anymore), it lives on in the dark recesses of pop culture. Here's the phrase used on TV's Veronica Mars, which I hear was a good show but I never actually got to see it. I guess I am "part of the problem", but then again I'm not a Nielsen home so it's not up to me, is it? I guess what I'm saying is DON'T BLAME ME, VERONICA MARS FANS.Tomorrow, we will take an in-depth look at the mother of all internet memes, one that will likely never truly die.
So back in '04, this kid Gary Brolsma posts a webcam video of himself lipsynching to a Moldovan techno song.Then, it gets around. A LOT. And Gary started showing up on the Tonight Show, Good Morning America, and that bastion of pop culture, VH1. Eventually, though, Gary withdrew from the limelight, which he'd never really wanted to begin with. He did not cooperate with a New York Times article about the "Numa Numa" phenomenon and stopped making television appearances altogether.In 2006, however, Gary came to terms with his internet fame and made a new video!Sadly, it's missing all the charm of the original. Personally, I think "Numa Numa" is a one-trick pony; once you try to do it on purpose, it loses its spontaneous feel and is just stupid. Oh, well. Vaya con carne, Gary!
Jean "Moebius" Giraud is a legendary artist. Famous for his work featured in the French comics magazine he co-created, Métal Hurlant, (later brought to the US as Heavy Metal), he created such internationally revered comics as Blueberry, The Airtight Garage, and Arzach; and he's collaborated with people like Alejandro Jodorowsky (a Dune film that was never produced, The Incal), Stan Lee (Silver Surfer), and Dan O'Bannon (The Long Tomorrow, Alien). He's a major influence on many today's artists, including Mike Mignola (Hellboy) and Enki Bilal (the Nikopol Trilogy). Luc Besson's 1997 film The Fifth Element was heavily influenced by (or maybe just "lovingly ripped off"?) Moebius' sensibilities. Ridley Scott used The Long Tomorrow as a visual guideline when making Blade Runner, and George Lucas stole the design of the Imperial probe droid in the Empire Strikes Back from the same story. Moebius also, along with Syd Mead, worked on production design for the 1982 Disney film Tron.
Here is the trailer for a documentary about Moebius called A Life In Pictures. It looks really interesting.
Internet meme week continues with a look at the Star Wars Kid.
So this kid from Quebec decides to tape himself trying to be Darth Maul with a metal rod instead of a double-bladed lightsaber. Somehow (against the kid's wishes, mind you) the tape makes it onto the interwebs.Suddenly, the Star Wars Kid is famous! How famous? Internet famous. And then the references began. Like on Arrested Development (one of the all-time great sitcoms):And of course, let's not forget Stephen Colbert's greenscreen contest:So basically, so far we've learned that the best way to be internet famous is to come up with a catchy catch phrase ("Leeroy Jenkins!"), or to simply make a fool out of yourself and have someone maliciously leak it to the interwebs. Tomorrow, we'll take a look at a guy who intentionally posted video of himself being an idiot (but knew not the powers of the interwebs), the Numa Numa Guy.
And now for something which should have caught on as an internet meme but for whatever reaason hasn't yet: some guy reedited some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon footage with dialogue from one of the best movies ever, The Big Lebowski. If you've ever seen The Big Lebowski, you know that the following clips are most likely NOT SAFE FOR WORK, but then I don't know where you work so maybe everyone there will get a kick out of this, I don't know.I thought it was funny. I am the walrus.
I don't know if you heard about this Chris Crocker thing, but there's this guy (I guess) who put a blanket over his head and the camera and started crying uncontrollably and screaming LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!!! and just generally being a severe weeniehead (I'd link to the video but I don't want to give the "guy" any more encouragement). The fact that his Wikipedia page is about twenty times longer than Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow director Kerry Conran's is evidence that there is pretty much no justice in the world. However, Sonic the Hedgehog's page is longer than the one for George Lucas, so maybe Wikipedia page length isn't any kind of yardstick of perceived value. We all know that George can buy and sell Sonic the Hedgehog. I digress as usual. Anyway, this Crocker kid got a development deal for a reality show, so his 15 seconds of fame may actually stretch out a bit longer than normal. Wonderful.
This whole ordeal got me thinking about internet memes, and how annoying they can be. But sometimes they can be cool, too. This week, we'll be reviewing a few fun internet memes. What is an internet meme? The Webster's of our time, Wikipedia, tells us:
The term Internet meme is a neologism used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads in a faddish way from person to person via the Internet. The term is a reference to the concept of memes, but is used loosely to refer to things that are not necessarily memes in a technical sense...an Internet meme is simply the propagation of a digital file or hyperlink from one person to others using methods available through the Internet (for example, email, blogs, social networking sites, instant messaging, etc.). The content often consists of a saying or joke, a rumor, an altered or original image, a complete website, a video clip or animation, or an offbeat news story, among many other possibilities.
Today, we look at Leeroy Jenkins, an overly enthusiastic World of Warcraft player who gets his whole guild killed by charging headlong into battle.This video (which is a visual recreation using the actual audio of the event), traveled 'round the interwebs for quite a while. Eventually, Leeroy became part of a clue on Jeopardy!, and was inevitably referenced in South Park's Warcraft episode. These things get around.One side effect of the internet meme is that, like it or not, you can become famous! Not just famous, but internet famous! Like the real Leroy Jenkins!Maybe some of you viewers out there can figure out what these guys are talking about, I don't play computer games.
Back in July, we saw some stuff about the long-gestating Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) film Southland Tales here on the blog. Now comes an actual trailer, which is cool because rarely do we get trailers that pose as many questions as this one. The main question: What the?Things I hate about this movie: the titles font. It really, really annoys me. It looks like something out of a Wolverine comic. Also, I'm not really a fan of Justin Timberlake as an "actor" (or a musician for that matter, though I do give him props for this), so the fact that he's in it doesn't exactly give me the warm fuzzies.
Things I like about this movie: Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson. I give guys like him and "Marky" Mark Wahlberg a hard time because they didn't come out of the Royal Shakespeare Company, but I'm convinced that Wahlberg is the real deal and I'm starting to think the same about The Rock as well (though that whole Scorpion King thing had me initially skeptical). Also, research tells me that this film has three parts, two of which are named after awesome songs: 'Temptation Waits' by Garbage and 'Wave of Mutilation' by the Pixies. Perhaps the songs will appear in the film? The UK Surf version of 'Wave of Mutilation' appears in the trailer. Also, I think I saw a Bigfoot somewhere in there? And Kevin Smith looks insane!
The best thing about this trailer is that it shows you what the deal is without explaining ANYTHING about what the deal is.
Richard Kelly is either a supergenius filmmaker or an insane one-hit wonder, and Southland Tales will tell us which he truly is. Maybe?
The life and death of Ian Curtis is an incredibly sad story that I'm pleasantly surprised wasn't made into a film much sooner. If not for the care taken by New Order and Ian's widow Deborah to protect his legacy, Tom Cruise or somebody would have played him in a Hollywood biopic fifteen years ago. While every band around has pigpiled onto the "Joy Division changed my life" bandwagon (especially Bono, who doesn't even know the right words to 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'), no one has managed to come close to capturing what Joy Division was. No one can. Joy Division as a band were a product of their time (the late 70s) and place (Manchester, UK), and a culture in flux. In contrast to all those hippie rock stars who died young, Ian Curtis' death didn't inspire morbid cults of admiration, cover bands ad nauseum, and near-deification; instead, the music Joy Division made inspired other bands to transcend what punk music was about, to throw the rules out the window, to be whatever they wanted to be. This is the legacy of Ian Curtis.Joy Division could never exist today. Heck, they could never exist when they existed. The nail that sticks out gets hammered down, and I think ultimately Ian knew this. So it was his duty as an iconoclastic rock star to die young, rather than have his legacy be worn down and cheapened by age, fame, and the eventual, inevitable sellout.
Ian Curtis was 23 years old.
Control will get a limited US release on October 10.
While the advice contained in this song is certainly valid, I'm not sure I get why Larry Cedar is dressed like some kind of weirdo fortune teller or something. Anyway, it's stuff like this that makes me think of how Larry recently played a very messed up junkie/dealer on HBO's Deadwood. That's range, people.
Avast, ye landlubbers! That's right, once again it's that time o' the year already - Talk Like a Pirate Day! Time to regale your friends - those scurvy dogs - with your many tales of adventure and thieving on the high seas. Have yerself a pint o grog and some wings of Buffalo from Port Archie. Recount your most fearsome encounters with such sea creatures as the Sea Ghost of the Isle of Dread, the Island of Big-Foot Women, the Underwater Bison Family, and of course, the mighty Kraken. But please be careful to celebrate responsibly:And before some blunderin' blunderbuss starts hisself blatherin' on about how much ninjas are better than pirates, it's no contest, matey.So remember, ye bilge rats, to while away today talkin' like ye never been ta English class or any kinds a schoolin', and if ye finds any buried treasure, I gets meself a twenty percent cut. Because I says so.
Yes, The Darjeeling Limited is nearly upon us (and frankly, I'm just not that into it this time; I seem to only be really into even numbered Wes Anderson films), but what's more important is the new set of commercials Wes Anderson has made for AT&T.Now, I pretty much have a strong dislike for AT&T, and these ads aren't going to make me use their products; but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate these ads for being neat. You may be familiar with this style of storytelling from the cutaway Belafonte sequences in the brilliant The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
This song from Square One will teach you a bit of ABSOLUTE MATHEMATICAL MAGIC. Amaze your friends at parties with this incredible quirk of math!I guess this type of thing is why I'm really not much of a hit at parties?
I've gushed about a few webcomics in my time, but now I think I've finally found one that can truly and definitively be called The Best. Or at least Totally Awesome.I first became aware of nedroid.com when Dinosaur Comics had a link to Anthony Clark's 200 Bad Comics, which is ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT. Well guess what, he also has some other stuff on his site, especially in the archive, where you can make friends with Beartato, pretty much the cutest character evar. There are many other characters to meet who share Beartato's adventures. Get to know them. I can wait right here.
Mr. Clark apparently really likes to draw bears; this is a good thing, because he's very good at drawing them. Another thing he draws a lot is robots; in fact, there are some beautifulfull-colorprints in the shop that I so badly want to get. The third major theme of his comics is dinosaurs. I think my favorite one of these has to be the Dinosaur Warlock comics. In fact, if you can wrap your head around the temporal hijinks, you can see my favorite Dinosaur Warlock comic here. Clark's comics are by turns hilarious and poignant, twisted and beautiful. Lest I keep dancing about architecture, have another example if you're not convinced:See? TOTALLY AWESOME.
There are a number of awesome film festivals every year. Cannes. Sundance. Slamdance. Venice. And Toronto.
No, really! Toronto's is the best, mostly because it comes just before all the big Oscar films start to hit, so a lot of them premiere there. Also, it's cool because it's in Toronto. I love Toronto as a city (it really is a clean, polite version of New York City, but without all the hype), and wish the Leafs would get it together. Doug Gilmour was awesome! Sorry, I'm digressing already.
Anyway, I didn't go to the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) (perhaps next year?), but I did read a lot of reviews. I will share with you some of the highlights and films to look out for in the weeks and months to come, because I am a nice person.
Persepolis This animated film won the Jury Prize at Cannes, and should be an Oscar contender for Best Animated Film or maybe even Best Foreign Film. It is the story of a girl growing up during Iran's Islamic Revolution. It opens in the US on December 25.
Elizabeth: The Golden Age Did you like the Cate Blanchett film Elizabeth? Sure, we all did. Costume epics are fun, especially with card-carrying members of the Scenery Chewers Union like Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush. And now Clive Owen's along for the ride as Sir Walter Raleigh, so what's not to love?
Encounters at the End of the World [no video available] Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man, Fitzcarraldo, Rescue Dawn) is one of my favorite directors. The man is certifiably insane, but in a less quixotic way than someone like, say, David Lynch. Herzog's the kind of guy that got shot by a sniper in the middle of an interview and wanted to keep going, saved Joaquin Phoenix when the actor got in a car wreck near Herzog's house, ate a shoe as part of a bet, had a steamboat hauled over a mountain using only manpower, threatened to kill his lead actor, walked 500 miles across Europe to visit a friend, and took a crew to film a volcano moments before it erupted. His latest film is a documentary where he goes to Antarctica and checks stuff out. How could it not be awesome?
Mongol The story of Genghis Khan, this time not as played by John Wayne. Yet another hostorical war epic, but I certainly ain't complaining.
No Country For Old Men Let's not even mention that it's the latest from the Coen Brothers, because you'll probly just stop reading and get in line right now. The cast is awesome, the story is tight. Everyone says it's great. I'm going to see it just because Javier Bardem's haircut is so wacky.
Juno Ellen Page was awesome in Hard Candy, but most people know her as Kitty Pryde from X-Men 3, if they know her at all. Here, she gets knocked up by Michael Cera from TV's Arrested Development, and shenanigans ensue. This seems like another film that has a stellar cast. One reviewer called it "like more caustic versions of Wes Anderson movies and characters," which is fine by me since Wes Anderson's pretty cool. This is the second film from Jason Reitman, director of Thank You For Smoking.
In the Valley of Elah Sure it's Oscar bait, but sometimes that means it's good. It's from the director of Crash, but I think this time maybe he didn't make a retarded movie. I dson't think Tommy Lee Jones would do a retarded- nevermind. I still think this looks decent.
Cassandra's Dream Woody Allen's latest is actually getting some mixed reviews, but most of the people who liked Match Point liked this one. Tom Wilkinson is in it, so it must be good. I like the fact that Woody is making a lot more dramatic films these days. With British people, of all things. And for once without Scarlett Johansson, who was probably out recording that album of Tom Waits covers (set for release in October, I kid you not).
Sukiyaki Western Django What the??? A Japanese western in spoken English? With a cameo from Quentin Tarantino? Too insane not to be awesome.
Le Scaphandre Et El Papillon (The Diving Bell and The Butterfly) American Julian Schnabel won Best Director at Cannes for this film, based on the memoirs of a French fashion magazine editor who has a stroke and can only communicate by blinking his one good eyelid. Most of the film's perspective comes from this eye. I have it on good authority that this film is not boring at all and is in fact completely engrossing. Yes, there's boobies. The French don't have a problem with boobies. It's no big deal over there. Chillax, people.
I'm Not There Everyone keeps making a big deal about the whole Cate Blanchett thing - and it's really cool - but Christian Bale and Heath Ledger are in this too. Which means Batman and the Joker both play Bob Dylan!
I dunno, these were some of the films that played at TIFF that were supposed to be pretty good. Maybe check a few of them out!
Seriously, I've got a lot of irons in the fire right now. That, combined with the fact that Not Much has been going on in the world of Pop (the whole Cloverfield thing calmed down, I covered all the new relevant trailers, I'm not giving tubby ex-pop stars space on the blog unless they decide to be relevant, we all hope Owen Wilson feels better, and I couldn't care less if 50 Cent & Kanye West and Kid Rock & Tommy Lee all killed each other in a steel cage match), means the post count has been low for the past few weeks.
What have I been doing? Mostly working. Also, I'm in post-production on a pair of DVDs, just released a promotional DVD over the weekend, and have two feature films coming up. One is a Jackass-style extravaganza of stupidity that I helped produce but did not direct; I will also be editing and handling the post-production on it. The other is a dramatic film in the early script stages, on pace for a 2009 or 2010 release. I know that sounds ridiculously futuristic but remember that we are in Q3 of 2007 RIGHT NOW.
Also, I recently purchased a compooder from the folks at Apple, and I must tell everyone that they need to quite literally throw their PCs just right out the nearest window and get one of these iMacs because they are seriously The Best Thing Evar. I am not even kidding. I'm having a hard time using the thing because I'm used to having to fight with PCs to do anything and the Mac is so INSANELY SIMPLE I have a hard time figuring out how to do stuff because I've been trained to do things The Hard Way (also known as "The Microsoft Way"). Free tip: GET A MAC, GUYS. For reals.
Where was I on Wednesday night? Let me show you.Note: Not footage of the actual show I saw, but meant as a sample of the type of spectacle Interpol brings to your local music venue.
If you have the chance to see Interpol live, I suggest you do so. They are very professional, technically excellent, and incredibly interesting in a live environment. They don't go out for gimmicky pyrotechnics, though they do use a simple but very effective lighting system. And there's not much rock star posturing aside from their impeccable fashion sense and maybe Daniel Kessler's constant bopping around whilst guitaring, which is just insane more than anything else. They performed a variety of songs from all three albums, and in the end they did one four-song encore. They rocked, and they rocked hard, but nobody rioted afterwards because the crowd was full of cool people. Everybody had an awesome time and went home happy.
NOTE: This video for 9/13 is posted in advance since I will not be available to post Today's Video when tomorrow will be today.
Back in the 80s, you couldn't throw a rocket-firing Boba Fett without hitting some sort of product related to the man, the myth, the legend known publicly as Mister T. Who was this mohawked, gold-encrusted man who dared to challenge Rocky Balboa, who drove the A-Team van, who...traveled in a bus with a gymnastics team? Of course, this was all part of a greater purpose - to squeeze cash out of the name and likeness of Mr. T himself. Remember that scene in Pee Wee's Big Adventure where Pee Wee is eating Mr. T Cereal? Some people think that was a joke, that the cereal never really existed. It was not a joke, my friends. Mr. T Cereal was real. Very real. So was the cartoon version of Mr. T wrestling with an alligator. IT WAS ALL FOR REAL.I'm not clear as to why Mr. T would be traveling with a gymnastics team, or what gymnastics has to do with Mr. T in general, or why a lady with a big sun hat would be driving their bus, or why T would be okay with a little redheaded kid emulating him, or how a dog could have a mohawk.
So my pal Jman sent me a link to this on YouTube. Later on, as I was making my rounds on the interwebs, I saw that EVERYBODY was linking to it. So why should I be any different?Good job, Rich Cando!
Yeah, so over the weekend the Iron Man trailer hit the interwebs via apple.com, which incidentally is a pretty good place to find trailers. Unfortunately, they don't do cool embedding stuff like YouTube, so I'll just have to give you the link to TOTAL AWESOMENESS IN GLORIOUS QUICKTIME.
Now, I realize that this isn't from the U.S., but would it kill them to do a little research into the difference between Marvel and DC? Because I don't think this kind of crossover is canon.In a dystopian future, learning this dance is COMPULSORY.
Maybe someday I too will kiss a lady and there will be disco laser sounds? DO I DARE TO DREAM???
Zoe Saldana (Pirates of the Caribbean) will be playing Uhura. She looks right and is a pretty good actress. Maybe she'll get to do more than just answer the spacephone this time around.
And the big new rumor is that some guy named Mike Vogel will be playing Captain James T. Kirk. Normally, I don't go out for a lot of these rumors, but the guy is in director J.J. Abrams' upcoming Cloverfield movie, and an announcement on this particular bit of crucial casting should be coming right about now - filming on Star Trek will begin very soon. Vogel doesn't really have anything impressive on his resume apart from Cloverfield, but maybe not having any preconceived notions about him is a good thing? I don't know. It's better than Justin Timberlake.
