* Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely are doing a new series called Batman and Robin, have you heard? “It’s like David Lynch doing the Batman TV show,” says Morrison, which phrase is, I think, to the Internet what “ZUR-EN-ARRH” was to Bruce Wayne.
* Look, normally I wouldn’t mind if They remade Stephen King’s It, because Tim Curry’s performance and make-up as Pennywise was literally the only thing the 1990 TV miniseries version got right. But then you hear that the new movie version is going to consolidate the 1958-to-1985 flashback/flashforward structure and all the ensuing and awesome period detail into the present day, and it’s like, fuck, why not just remake Killer Klowns from Outer Space instead? One day someone’s gonna take one of Stephen King’s really good books and make an HBO maxiseries out of it, complete with subterranean tween gangbang, and we can all be happy. Until then I’m going to want to throw my computer through the window on a regular basis.
* Mickey Rourke and Scarlett Johansson as some Russian villain and the Black Widow in Iron Man 2? Well done, Marvel Studios. Everyone try not to stare at ScarJo’s Russian accent.
* Jason’s Low Moon looks fantastic.
* John Hankiewicz can draw the bloody bejesus out of a sewing machine case.
* Spurge:
But yeah, if you liked Watchmen, you might want to try some of the books that are like whatever the heck you liked about Watchmen, and DC has certainly published some of those books.
LOL
* In light of the Battlestar Galactica series finale, part one of which airs tonight, this has got to be the quote of the day:
On March 17, there will be a “Battlestar” retrospective at the U.N. in New York and a panel discussion of how the show examined issues such as “human rights, children and armed conflict, terrorism, human rights and reconciliation and dialogue among civilizations and faith,” according to Sci Fi.
Actually, no, wait: This is the quote of the day:
The panel will be moderated by “Battlestar” fan Whoopi Goldberg.
(Via the utterly gobsmacked Topless Robot.)
I had to miss last week’s episode of BSG and for some reason it hasn’t uploaded to SciFi.com or Hulu yet, nor has it been reshown on the air in the intervening week as far as I’ve seen.
Do they really want me to bail on the last two episodes until the DVDs come out, thereby missing all the advertisements I’m more than willing to sit through?
I honestly think they do.
I remember reading something about them only instantly putting the first few episodes of this half-season up on Hulu, and the rest you’d have to wait a week for or something like that. I don’t get it either.
About IT: “Whafuck?” – Benecio del Toro in The Usual Suspects
They’re on one-week delay for the last few episodes, which seems like a fine compromise to me — cable networks need to be good partners to the systems that carry them, and they haven’t figure out exactly what works yet.
I figure as I waited 19 years to see the Jamie Farr episode of Kolchak the Night Stalker again, I can wait a week to see the latest installment of Edward Olmos crying and throwing things.
I totally understand wanting a delay, but it really threw me as I was pretty sure I saw the “Starbuck’s Daddy’s Piano Rag” episode up before the one that followed it, and I don’t quite get the practice of having a set release schedule for only half their season.
What really blows my mind is how few times the episodes are actually shown on broadcast. Maybe internet viewing really cut down the need, but as recently as two years ago, SciFi would re-air its whole Friday night line up at least two more times during the intervening week. I can’t imagine that a replay of their most popular show will really cut into the ratings for the seven-hour block of “Jericho” they’ve got lined up during the week.
I bet they’ll run a marathon of episodes leading up to the finale, so maybe they’re saving for that.
Various re-run strategies can be complex depending on time and situation. I seem to remember when Fox TV started running first season In Living Colors back in the early 1990s. They pitched it to TV writers it as a combination of “better than any other show we got” and “a way to boost ratings on the new ones” and Keenan Ivory Wayans saw it instead as “you’re screwing me out of millions of syndication money based on people wanting to revisit those early episodes.”
Throw in various DVD strategies and the absolute reality of free ripped episodes and I wouldn’t want to be making those decisions right now!
But then you hear that the new movie version is going to consolidate the 1958-to-1985 flashback/flashforward structure and all the ensuing and awesome period detail into the present day
Where did you hear that? I think you messed up the link that goes with the words “then you hear”, right now it’s just a repeat of the link that you put with the words “They remade Stephen King’s It”, it doesn’t say anything about losing the flashback structure.
Jesse: I repeated the link on purpose. Also, it says “The novel is set in 1958 and 1985, though the feature version will be set in the present day.” So does the Hollywood Reporter thing they took it from. Although now that you mention it, given how bad the trades are at accurately summarizing genre-story details, perhaps what they mean is that 1985 will be switched to the present day and the flashbacks will take place in the ’80s or something.
Thanks, I didn’t catch the significance of the “though the feature version will be set in the present day” line, although like you say that could just mean they’re bumping both time periods up.