Archive for January 31, 2007
Scarlett Johansson nude
January 31, 2007…is just one of the many pleasures offered by Matt Zoller Seitz’s Top 5 Imaginary Movies, which also include a Terrence Malick adaptation of Moby Dick starring Mel Gibson as Ahab and a CGI Watership Down directed by (the overrated, but ymmv) Brad Bird. Hmmm…I may have to cast some Books of Blood films as a response.
And remember, you heard it here fir
January 30, 2007One of the great undiscovered horror gems from any medium over the past few years is The Abandoned, the “Dawn of the Dead meets Suicide Girls” graphic novel by writer/artist Ross Campbell. So it’s much to my delight/dismay that Campbell himself delivers some good news/bad news in the comment thread of blogger Bill Sherman’s review of the book. The good news is that Campbell’s pitching The Abandoned 2 to various publishers (all of whom would be well advised to snap that shit up toot sweet), and has a vision for a Volume 3 at some point as well. The bad news is that due to a falling out with original publisher Tokyopop, Campbell no longer has the rights to the first volume’s lead character, zaftig lovesick lesbian punk Rylie. Suffice it to say that the events of the first book led Rylie to a place emotionally that would be very interesting to explore; let’s hope that Campbell’s dream of getting her back in time to cap off the trilogy comes true.
Meanwhile, Thomas Jane, star of director Frank Darabont’s upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s wonderful novella The Mist, reveals to Fangoria that Darabont has changed the story’s much-loved ending. This news comes via The Horror Blog’s Steven Wintle, who expresses concern. However, a coworker of mine noted that insofar as the novella’s ending relies on a very specific way of delivering a line or two that would be difficult to replicate outside of prose, it may not be much to worry about. My feeling is that if the changed ending takes up “the last 10 pages” as Jane implies, there are larger changes afoot, ones that may dumb down the Hitchcockian denouement of King’s original. We’ll see.
Finally, Cinematical brings us the news-to-me details on The Descent director Neil Marshall’s next film, the aptly titled post-apocalyptic virus flick Doomsday. This link comes courtesy of my old running buddy Jason Adams of My New Plaid Pants, whose tolerance for all things post-apocalyptic and viral seems a lot lower than mine own.
And oh, how they danced, the little people of Stonehenge
January 30, 2007It seems amazing to me that the surroundings of Stonehenge are sufficiently unexplored for a tiny village to be discovered there now, but there you have it. I hope they find some suitably horrifying artifacts as they continue to excavate.
If it’s a water monster, I’ll eat it
January 30, 2007Even when it’s as obvious a put-up job as this footage of a Norwegian lake monster. (A fairly well-executed put-up job, though, which makes a big difference.)
Hat tip: the great Loren Coleman at Cryptomundo.
Now more than ever
January 29, 2007Quote of the day
January 29, 2007But the notion that this war is about our moral failings is comfort fantasy, pure and simple. It soothes us with the false idea that, if we but mend ourselves, the scary people will leave us alone.
—“Is Hollywood too timid for the war on terror?; Thanks to political correctness, you don’t see much about the greatest conflict of our time on the big screen,” Andrew Klavan, The L.A. Times
This is basically a politicized articulation of what I’ve been saying regarding the “It’s about Iraq!” veneer slapped on the modern-day meat-movie cycle, and why I think that’s a copout. (My version: There’s nothing special about our evil. Evil is everywhere.)
(Hat tip: Glenn Reynolds.)
Partial pan of Pan
January 28, 2007Matt Yglesias, like me, thought that Pan’s Labyrinth was okay. Of his three major beefs I disagree with one, sympathize with the next, and agree with the last.
Beef one: “a silly sentimental ending” that I, on the contrary, thought was the best part of an otherwise fairly rote and unimaginative fantasy.
Beef two: “they sapped the Spanish Civil War of any ideological content.” That’s certainly true insofar as the Captain is pretty much just a very bad bad guy (though a very good very bad bad guy at that) rather than one who’s specifically fascist/Falangist, and insofar as the red guerillas might well have skipped out on performing as the students in Les Mis
By popular demand?
January 28, 2007At this week’s Horror Roundtable, I find myself unwittingly joining an unlikely mass movement in favor of releasing a certain child-of-the-’80s cult classic on DVD. (Seriously, four of us? Kinda random, isn’t it?) But as Horror Blog proprietor Steven Wintle pointed out to me when he first received my suggestion, that very film is indeed on its way to an official DVD release near you!
Sea monster LIVE
January 27, 2007I can’t watch this again because her gills trigger a minor phobia I have about growths (scary and phobia are two different things), but here’s video footage of that deep-sea frilled shark. This is why the ocean is frightening.
Quote of the day
January 27, 2007Someone should come up with a name for this Quentin Tarantino rip-off subgenre of action films, and it should be something that takes into account the fact that there have been good ones (Bound, Go, Snatch, Amores Perros), as well as bad ones (Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead, 2 Days in the Valley, 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag, Knockaround Guys). It should also take into account that these films have kept coming more than a decade past the original — much longer even than the Star Wars knockoffs lasted. In the past year or two, we’ve seen Domino, Running Scared, Lucky Number Slevin and now Smokin’ Aces, from director Joe Carnahan.
–Jeffrey M. Anderson, Cinematical
Day job follies
January 26, 2007
In addition to the strangely fascinating He-Man gallery I talk about below, the good people at Wizard Entertainment have put up a lot of pieces you might be interested in reading.
First and foremost, there’s my colleague Andy Serwin’s interview with Battlestar Galactica‘s Edward James Olmos, who reveals some details about this upcoming Sunday’s episode (which he directed) and delves into the state of sci-fi in general.
Next, you may not be aware of this, but I help write ToyFare‘s beloved parody comic feature “Twisted ToyFare Theatre.” It has an undeserved reputation for just being toys with word balloons over their heads making fart jokes, but when I first started reading it I found myself laughing out loud again and again and again (and that was before I started working on it; now, of course, it’s a Pythonesque masterpiece); my guess is that if you are even a little bit of a nerd, the same thing will happen to you. Anyway, the website currently features my favorite of all the TTT episodes I’ve worked on thus far, a G.I. Joe parody I was fairly intimiately involved with, and I invite you to read and enjoy. And if you like it, there’s more where that came from: the Twisted ToyFare Theatre Vol. 8 collection, in which you’ll find quite a few strips with my stamp on them, is on sale now.
And as (almost) always, I’m part of this week’s Thursday Morning Quarterback crew; my opinions on Wednesday’s issues of Doctor Strange: The Oath, Silent War, 52, Cold Heat (yes, you read that right), Criminal, Eternals, and Wolverine are yours for the perusing.
The Power of Grayskull
January 26, 2007
A while back I wrote about the primal influence exerted by He-Man on my imagination to this day. There’s something about its everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach to constructing genre entertainment for children that makes me think “Why can’t genre entertainment for grown-ups be like that, too?” Its magpie aesthetic is reflected in a lot of the art I enjoy these days, from David Bowie to Grant Morrison.
Anyway, over at the day job, ToyFare has posted a selection of He-Man pin-up posters created by various comic book artists for a He-Man DVD release–such as the portrait of Skeletor and his minions by Dan Brereton you see above–and immediately upon seeing them I was reminded of just how much I dig Eternia. Go check it out.
Toddlerpede
January 25, 2007Wow, that’s delightfully creepy.
Lots, lots more where that came from at the site of artist Jon Beinart.
(Hat tip: Ken.)
Quote of the day
January 24, 2007Two human heads sawn in half were found in fridge-freezers used to store pork at the home of suspected serial killer Robert Pickton.
—Horror at ‘mass murderer’ farm,” Emily Smith, The Sun
(Hat tip: The Daily Gut.)
Good Lord
January 24, 2007That is one scary water monster.
It’s a frilled shark, and it’s rarely seen alive. A Japanese marine park captured it after it was spotted by a fisherman. And it’s SCARY AS HELL.
More here. Hat tip: Ken.
Man defies water monsters
January 22, 2007This gentleman is my hero.
LIMA, Peru – Few would even dare swim the Amazon river bank to bank but Slovenian Martin Strel plans to swim 3,375 miles down the world
That’s Doctor President Baltar to you, pal
January 22, 2007Best t-shirt ever?
FREE GAIUS: So say we all!
Support the best character on Battlestar Galactica by purchasing this t-shirt (for a measly $9.99!) at Hobocamp Crafts. (More good stuff here.)
Quote of the day
January 22, 2007“Body parts everywhere, many bodies charred; it was horrible,” the official said.
—“Car bombings kill 75 in Baghdad,” CNN.com
We need more commercials that reference Jules Verne
January 21, 2007Count the TOTALLY AWESOME hollow-earth genre tropes in this Dodge Nitro commercial.
Merlot not included
January 20, 2007The second my friend Zach Oat told me he’d made this t-shirt, I knew people were just gonna flip out.
Men’s and women’s versions on sale here. For more fine products from Zach and his missus Melissa, visit Hobocamp Crafts.