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George Lucas to Put Star Wars on at London Stadium

December 12, 2008 /

Jedi master Yoda in a scene from Star Wars

“Just when it appeared that George Lucas had finally laid to rest his epic saga of Jedis, Wookies and Ewoks, he has announced that Star Wars will return as a stadium experience. The Times has learnt that Lucasfilm has authorised Star Wars: A Musical Journey, a retelling of the story that will combine excerpts of the film with live orchestral accompaniment. Diehard fans may dream of Jedi Knights serenading Jabba the Hutt and C-3PO singing “Don’t cry for me, R2-D2” but they are likely to be disappointed. Producers for the show, which will have its world premiere in Britain, emphasised that although actors would be used to narrate the story, it would not be a stage musical.

The production, which condenses more than 13 hours of film into 90 minutes, will be more like a classical music concert performed in front of a cinema screen, 27m (90ft) wide. The audience at the 17,000-seat O2 Arena in southeast London will watch key scenes from the film as 86 musicians from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra play extracts from John Williams’s score. The composer has reworked the music for the show, which will take place on April 10. Other shows may follow, depending on demand.”

(via The TimesOnline)

Questions and Answers with Cult Horror Movie Star Bruce Campbell

December 4, 2008 /

http://www.sfgate.com/blogs/images/sfgate/culture/2007/04/14/toronto5.jpg

Over the weekend some friends of mine went to the premier of “My Name is Bruce”, where Bruce Campbell himself conducted a question and answer session after the movie. I finally got to see the movie myself and it’s a hilarious parody of Bruce and his movies. If you like silly B-horror movie schlock with self-depreciating humor thrown in it, you’ll enjoy this movie. Here are some of the Q and A’s from that night:

Q– “You’re named after a king of Scotland!”

Bruce- “Yes, I was named after Robert the Bruce! Robert the Bruce of Scotland!”

Q– “Have you thought of doing a Celtic/Scottish style horror movie with kilts and swords?
We wanna see you in a kilt and waving a sword around.”

Bruce– “No, I hadn’t thought of that. I’m actually not Scottish, I’m descended from the Basque.”

Q–  “Well, they wear kilts too! How about it?! You can call it BruceHeart!”

Bruce– ” I like the way you think! What do you do?”

A– I’m a student.”

Bruce– “Well, you better stay with that!”

Q-“How many Hawaiian shirts do you own?”

Bruce– “I don’t know. I like to pick up goofy shirts. I hate wearing ties!  Is anybody here wearing a tie tonight?”  (silence)
“Good!”

Q– “Do you have any of the Elvis outfits from Bubba Hotep?

Bruce– “You know, I don’t have any Elvis suits. They all belong to the place that originally made them for Elvis. You can’t buy them, only rent them. So I don’t have any of those cool costumes at home in my closet.”

Q-What was your favorite movie to work on?

Bruce– “You mean like, the most pleasant circumstances to work in, or favorite movie to make?
If you have too good a time, it isn’t going to be that good of a movie. You have to work to make a good movie. You’re up early, working 12-16 hours a day. If it is not a pleasant time then you end up with a good movie.” (Basically he said that he enjoyed making movies and he really didn’t have a favorite.)

He also mentioned that he had the set for “My Name Is Bruce” built on his property in California. Now what can he do with it? A delivery man came to drop off a package, drove up the drive, got out and looked around with a look of befuddlement or amazement and said  “I didn’t know there was a ghost town out here. Is this a ghost town? Gold Lick [the name of the town in the movie]? Was this here all along?”

(Many thanks to the Jones’!)
(See also: A brief interview with Campbell “Cult Star Campbell Does Double Duty in Horror Comedy” via The Daily Herald)

Literary Novels and Fan Culture: Some Thoughts Following The Future of Entertainment 3

December 4, 2008 /

“Over the weekend I attended The Future of Entertainment 3, a conference organized by MIT’s Comparative Media Studies department. The two day event featured back to back roundtables focusing on issues related to social media, audience participation, and “spreadable media,” a term CMS director Henry Jenkins coined as a more appropriate way to describe content than “viral.” (Viral connotes an inexplicable element the “infected” have no control over. It suggests you can “design the perfect virus and give it to the right first carriers.”)

From a post on Jenkins’ blog last year:

Our core argument is that we are moving from an era when stickiness was the highest virtue because the goal of pull media was to attract consumers to your site and hold them there as long as possible, not unlike, say, a roach hotel. Instead, we argue that in the era of convergence culture, what media producers need to develop spreadable media. Spreadable content is designed to be circulated by grassroots intermediaries who pass it along to their friends or circulate it through larger communities (whether a fandom or a brand tribe). It is through this process of spreading that the content gains greater resonance in the culture, taking on new meanings, finding new audiences, attracting new markets, and generating new values. In a world of spreadable media, we are going to see more and more media producers openly embrace fan practices, encouraging us to take media in our own hands, and do our part to insure the long term viability of media we like.

Indeed, our new mantra is that if it doesn’t spread, it’s dead.”

(via The Tomorrow Museum)

Horror Bloggers United: A Roundtable with The League of Tana Tea Drinkers

November 29, 2008 /

“Blogging has become something of a pop culture phenomenon. It’s a virtual platform that gives everyone – from novice to novelist – a unique voice and presence on the vast World Wide Web. The ultimate in self-publishing, upgraded for the 21st century.

But like the virtual social networks that bring people from around the world together, it seems like a natural progression then that bloggers would branch out from their individual self-expression and seek group affiliation. In the horror arena, a group of stalwart bloggers joined forces earlier this year to form the peculiarly named League of Tana Tea Drinkers (or LOTT D). The brainchild of John Cozzoli, who has helmed his own long-running blog called ZOMBOS CLOSET OF HORROR which explores the horror genre as reflected in all media and pop culture, LOTT D now includes 29 member blogs and continues to grow. Impressive in its variety, the LOTT D boasts member blogs covering everything from Frankenstein to Godzilla, slasher films to zombies, and childhood terrors to comic books. Spend a few hours perusing the LOTT D’s member blogs and you’ll find everything you need for a serious horror fix — from serious film commentary to some of the funniest genre observations, insightful original essays to button-pushing opinion pieces, and heaps of useful book and films reviews from classic to current.

The mission of the LOTT D is outlined on its virtual homepage:

“Our mission is to acknowledge, foster, and support thoughtful, articulate, and creative blogs built on an appreciation of the horror and sci-horror genre. Horror bloggers are a unique group of devoted fans and professionals, from all walks of life, who keep the horror genre, in all its permutations and media outlets, alive and kicking. Often spending long hours to keep their blogs informative and fun, horror bloggers share their unique mix of personality, culture and knowledge freely to fans of a genre difficult to describe, but easy to love.”

DSM recently caught up with Cozzoli (aka ILoz Zoc) and five of his LOTT D compatriots for an informal discussion about this groundbreaking new consortium of horror bloggers. Joining him are Stacie Ponder, FINAL GIRL proprietress and AMC columnist extraordinaire, Lance Vaughan (aka Unkle Lancifer), co-creator of the childhood terror site KINDERTRAUMA, August Ragone , author and renowned authority on Japanese film and culture who helms THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND GODZILLA, John Morehead, academic and explorer of the social, cultural, mythic, archetypal, imaginative, creative, and even spiritual aspects of the fantastic at his blog THEOFANTASTIQUE, and Mike Petrucelli (aka Pax Romano), witty commentator on the queer subtext of horror films from BILLY LOVES STU.”

(via Dark Scribe Magazine)

Don?t Blink: Tales From the Far Side

October 19, 2008 /

I’ve been a big fan of Gary Larson’s “The Far Side” for as long as I can remember. His “outside the box” comics of silly reactions that monsters, animals, insects, aliens, and even vegetables might have in reaction to us human beings pulls me out of my reality tunnel and makes me laugh, and sometimes more importantly, is a reminder not to take everything so seriously. Now a DVD set of “Tales From The Far Side”, an animated series that appeared on TV in 1994, is available.

“Almost everyone has seen a Gary Larson Far Side cartoon in a newspaper or on a T-shirt, mug, calendar, or greeting card. But if you weren’t watching CBS on the night of October 26, 1994, you missed Tales From the Far Side, an award-winning animated short film that you’ve probably never heard of. Yes, that’s right: the Far Side was animated. Twice. And it’s brilliant.

The first short film premiered as a Halloween special in 1994, where couch potatoes and animation buffs like me saw it and were never able to forget it. The program was never broadcast on television again, but it did make the rounds at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, where it took the Grand Prix. Three years later, a sequel (aptly titled Tales From the Far Side II) never even made it to television.

Both short films are comprised of a series of vignettes in the visual style of the print comics, with a haunting musical accompaniment by jazz guitarist Bill Frisell (who has featured some of the scores from the soundtrack on his disc Quartet). The tone ranges from the slapstick to the macabre, humorous to depressing, and even has some live action cow action thrown in there.”

(via Fantasy Magazine)

Friday Lulz and Distractions

October 17, 2008 /

Obama Pictures and McCain Pictures

With all the “doom and gloom” brought on by the economic crisis and the intensity of the upcoming election, I figured it was time for some levity. Here’s some links to make you laugh or distract you. (Readers, feel free to add your own in the comments.)

Liquid Comics Banks on Indian Epic With Ramayan 3392 AD Film

October 16, 2008 /

Ram_on_shoulder_hanurm_image2

“With Hollywood hitting up comic books for blockbusters, a new comics publisher is looking to India for ideas. “The world is increasingly realizing that India is a source for creativity and great ideas, not just a back office to execute them more cheaply,” said Gotham Chopra, part of the management team at Los Angeles-based Liquid Comics.

One of the first projects for the publisher will be bringing its Ramayan 3392 AD (pictured) – a colorful, 21st-century re-imagining of Indian literary epic the Ramayana – to movie theaters. Liquid has teamed up with Mandalay Pictures and 300 producer Mark Canton for the film, which has a planned release date of 2011. Liquid sprang from the ashes of Virgin Comics, a shuttered enterprise from Richard Branson and the Chopra family that was meant to hammer the dense narratives of India and Asia into graphic novels for the American mainstream and beyond. Chopak and other members of the Liquid management team undertook the buyout of Virgin Comics to continue the quest at the new company.

Chopra talked with Wired.com about Liquid’s birth, a new wave of Indian comics artists and the challenge of bringing an ancient Sanskrit epic to the silver screen.”

(via Wired)

Opus Dei Cartoon and TV Series to Boost Image

October 5, 2008 /

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“Dan Brown’s hugely popular book, and the subsequent film starring Tom Hanks, depicted the Roman Catholic order as a religious cult which would stop at nothing – including murder – to cover up the ‘truth’ that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had married and had a child.

Most damaging for Opus Dei was Brown’s fictional character Silas, the self-flagellating and serial-killing albino monk, said to be a member of the organisation – despite the fact that it is not a monastic order and has no monks. Opus Dei has recently embarked on a public relations campaign to try to dispel its image as a powerful but shadowy off-shoot of the Roman Catholic Church.

The mini-series and cartoon are the latest initiatives in the charm offensive. They were announced on the 80th anniversary of the organisation’s founding by a Spanish priest, Jose Maria Escriva de Balaguer, who died in 1975. The cartoon is in the production phase by Mediaset, the media company owned by Italy’s prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. The mini-series is being developed by Mediaset’s public broadcaster rival, RAI. They are intended to show that Opus Dei (Latin for The Work of God) has nothing to hide, said spokesman Pippo Corigliano.”

(via The Telegraph)

Hammer Films has Risen from the Grave

September 22, 2008 /

http://www.theolddarkhouse.com/Hammer%20films/A%20Hammer%20Film%20Production%202.JPG

“Classic film fans lock up your daughters, take up your wooden stakes and prepare to battle the forces of darkness: Hammer Films has announced it’s called action on its first horror production for over 30 years. Principal photography began today in County Donegal on The Wake Wood, featuring Eva Birthistle, Aidan Gillen and Timothy Spall. David Keating is at the helm, directing a screenplay he co-wrote with Brendan McCarthy.

The suitably Hammeresque blurb explains: “Still grieving the death of nine-year-old Alice – their only child – at the jaws of a crazed dog, vet Patrick and pharmacist Louise relocate to the remote town of Wake Wood where they learn of a pagan ritual that will allow them three more days with Alice. The couple find the idea disturbing and exciting in equal measure, but once they agree terms with Arthur, the village’s leader, a far bigger question looms – what will they do when it’s time for Alice to go back?” Crikey. Hammer’s first production was The Public Life Of Henry The Ninth, way back in 1935. Its final cinematic curtain call came in 1979 with a rehash of Alfred Hitchcock classic The Lady Vanishes.”

(via The Register)

(Hammer Films site)

Klingon Beauty in Eye of Beholder

September 3, 2008 /

http://enterprisevidcaps2.netfirms.com/Judgment/female%20klingon%2011.jpg

“Kelly Sheckler is blond with a heart-shaped face and a warm smile. Five feet tall on a good day, she’s mother to three children, wife to Tom, employee of the Environmental Protection Agency, keeper of a tidy home in Lawrenceville. But when she crosses a stage at the downtown Sheraton Sunday, she will be something else altogether: KhaZelia VanGough — warrior, leader and Miss Klingon Empire 2008 hopeful.

Miss Klingon Empire is an annual pageant at DragonCon, the sci-fi/fantasy geek gathering that descends upon Atlanta every year to pay homage to Superman, Storm Troopers and Star Fleet, among others. To win Miss Klingon Empire, a contestant need not have the best costume or the prettiest (ugliest?) face. Simply, she must embody a Klingon, a fictitious alien race famous for its ridged forehead and brutal manner that debuted in the original ‘Star Trek’ TV series and has been a part of the ‘Trek’ franchise ever since.

Contestants don’t catfight — female sci-fi lovers tend to stick together — but they don’t play around, either. Thousands of audience members won’t let them. When a past contestant appeared on stage in a Hooters uniform, the audience was at first entertained but quickly dismissed her, judges recalled. Klingon women may be known for ample bosoms, but they’d never show them that way. And once the queen is awarded her crown, trophy, sash and flowers, judges name no first or second runner-up. In the Klingon world, there are only winners and losers.”

(via ajc.com)

(Related: “Klingon Like Me” via Techgnosis)

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