G.I.JOE french trailer

Y'know, the script for this was eye-rolling painful, but this looks like giant dumb fun. Unlike Transformers, I don't really have very strong childhood loyalty to the Joe's, so a dumb fun movie like this might work out ok.

newbits

- TV Networks will lose $21.5 million by not airing Obama's speech. I know technically we should be switched over to digital signals and not analog -- but we're not. The government still owns the airwaves and have pretty much given them to the networks to make a profit for over 50 years, so they can suck it up a bit.

- Sean Hannity offered to get waterboarded for charity. Kieth Olbermann wants him to do it, I want him to do it, and I think every YouTube and every TV Network wants him to do it. What's the big deal about waterboarding, right?

- Tonight is Lost's 100th episodes, titled "The Variant," and is said to be a companion piece to "The Constant," a Desmond episode so great it could probably stand with some of the best Twilight Zone hours ever crafted.

- Look! The Anit-Devil Wears Prada!

- I have no real feelings either which way about Jay Leno or Conan O'Brien, or the Tonight Show takeover, but I do like the logo:- This weekend Cartoon Network will air the final 5 episodes of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Its been so long since a fresh one, I thought the show had already run its course. Oops.

- This is sort of awesome:

- Ridley Scott may want to do an Alien-prequel sans Ripley. Between this is Fox's Predator reboot (PredatorS -- which sounds great except for the mixed-bag that is Robert Rodriguez), and rumors of a more serious Fantastic Four relaunch (so they don't lose the liscence)...can Fox be getting their heads on straight?

what i'm watching

THINGS I'M EXCITED TO SEE ON MY DVR:

30 Rock - after a bumpy guest-heavy first half of the season, the show is firing on all cylinders and has finally figured out what to do with Jane Krakowski (by basically making her a white, female Tracy Jordan)

Lost - Creative, compelling, and only boring when Jack or Kate is on screen.

Ace of Cakes - The most feel-good, mellow, show on television. I had no idea this toy even existed until M@ got it for my birthday!

Time Warp - on Discovery. It's like Mythbusters with less annoying hosts and lots of slow-mo photographry (hence, the title). Want to see how beautiful gumballs in a blender is at 10,000 frames per second? Tune in.

Chopped - On Food Network. Sure its a rip-off of Top Chef, but its basically a whole season in 1 hour, which is pretty rad.

Ben 10: Alien Force - I'm little late into the Ben 10 game, having not really cared for the original younger series, but now really enjoying this quasi-teenage Green Lantern-ish show.

Batman: Brave and the Bold - In some ways, the perfect polar opposite the 90's classic series. Capital F - U - N.

When Weather Changed History - Watch as mother nature routinely rips people a new one, and then find out why.

The West Wing - reruns on Bravo are still better than most scripted dramas currently airing.

Fringe - They're all siting on my DVR. I haven't watched them yet. I hear its been getting better, and that Anna Torv is getting less and less like driftwood.

The Suze Orman Show - I'm obsessed, and saddend that CNBC doesn't really rerun previous episodes (I know they're uber-topical, and probably dated beyong beliefe, but c'mon!)

review: i love you, man

- CBS has moved Harper's Island to saturdays. Maybe it will go head to head with Kings this summer, when its ok that nobody cares?

- Breaking news! The CraigsList killer's wedding is OFF, and the news came from...the Spingstein Cover Band. I hope that poor girl gets all the therapy she's gonna need. I'm sure when this gets Law & Ordereified she's going to turn into a killer, too.

- You do not become a masked avenger to do interviews. Fail.

newsbits: when pigs fly

- Amazing.

- Is it wrong that I'm happy the Swine Flu came to pass, thus changing the first 15 minutes of the NBC Nightly News? I'm sick of bailout coverage and stuff about GM. You can track it here.

- This has recieved the top spot on my Netflix queue.

- I didn't realize that Michael Dorn (Worf from TNG) was playing the President on Heroes. For a millisecond I thought about tuning in, but then I realized the show would only infuriate and insult me.

- I can't wait to see this on a plane one day:

- Star Trek is at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes with 13 reviews. Fingers crossed.

- I'm SHOCKED that the Real Housewives of New Jersey have mob ties, especially after watching their 30-minute preview, which I thought would end in the Pine Barrens.

love the poster, hope the movie's good

review: monsters vs. aliens (IMAX 3D)

newsbits: renew

- ABC renewed Ugly Betty. I think ABC needs to reboot Ugly Betty.

- Cartoon Network is saying "we're sort of Cartoon Network," just like A&E is now "sort of Arts and Entertainment" and AMC is "sort of about American Movie Classics." Scooby Doo is becoming a live action series after a direct-to-dvd video threequel, The Mystery Begins
- Variety has a pretty neat Q&A session with Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof about Lost. My favorite is this nugget at the end: “Lost” would not be possible without the tremendous advances in visual effects technology in the last few years, especially the drop in costs and the ability to do complex visual effects on a TV budget and schedule. The island of Oahu where we shoot the show is very beautiful but also very populated and developed. We remove roads, telephone poles, houses, boats and surfers in nearly every episode. But even more importantly, VFX allow us to make Hawaii look like literally any place in the world. We’ve used our VFX team to turn Oahu into Iraq, Berlin, Paris, Tunisia and even a snowy winter in Red Square. In fact, in the entire 100-plus episode history of the show we’ve only shot four scenes off the island, mainly due to actor availability.

- Rod Blagojevich wants a reality show. He says he wants it to be like The Osbournes, I think its really going to be more like Oz.

- Apparently I'm not the only one anxious to see a trailer for James Cameron's sci-fi return Avatar. "Eight, count 'em, EIGHT trailers have already been made for AVATAR and all of them failed the test with James Cameron. He is hard at work prepping his own trailer for the masses as he knows the first trailer has to be done right."

- I love how Harry Potter and the characts have become so recognizable and iconic, they can absolutely disregard the logo and titles in the new key art.

newsbits: pilot season

- Not sure where Bonnie Bedelia has been, but we know where she's going to be this fall.

- A bunch of TV shows are on the bubble. Some have run their course and already syndicated (Cold Case), while others never quite found their footing (Eleventh Hour). I think its funny that three years ago everyone thought Studio 60 was a surefire success and 30 Rock was a weird little thing that wouldn't go anywhere, and now Fringe is thriving while Bruckheimer's import remake is on the bubble -- even though it follows CSI.

- Ellen Pompeo is pregnant, which I guess means that she finally has to eat. Hey, it worked for Nicole Richie.

- NBC is auctioning off a Battlestar Raptor, which isn't really news since they tried auctioning it off 2 months ago and it never met the reserve price. Something tells me the finale + recession means that we'll be seeing this on the backlot tram tour in the not-so-distant-future.

- More robot smash footage from Transformers 2 has hit the internets, and I still could care less. The first movie was so bad it transcended mockery.

- I'm trying to avoid everything Star Trek I can so I can have fun in the movie -- I fear I already know too much about the set up.

review: every little step

panic-o-rama

For a job I'm having to pull zombie stills, particularly Dawn of the Dead 2.0 and 28 Days/Weeks Later.

Since I couldn't find it online, here's Zack Snyder's suburban doom with a siamese twin version of Sarah Polley:

process recess

newsbits: i'm a movie trailer, get me out of here!

- Oprah's entire show on friday will be dedicated to Twitter. I'm expecting a lot of truncated sentences.

- REALLY?- Bacon swords are awesome. Can you imagine if gang warfare was conducted with flaming bacon instead of machine guns?

- The new trailer for Half-Blood Prince just came out, and it looks pretty awesome -- despiute rumors of re-shoots after poor test screenings.

- One can only hope this movie is as good as the poster.- In Russia, Doctors found a 2 inch tree growing in a guys lung. What the WHAT?

- Guaranteed to have at least a big premiere: the new season of I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here with Geraldo, Speidi, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Janice Dickinson, ex-Gov. Blagojevich, and Nancy Kerrigan in the jungles of Costa Rica.

- NBC may be a joke, but ABC is number 1...at losing viewers. It's hard to out Ben Silverman Ben Silverman, but Stephen McPherson has done it. Still, Lost is on top of its game.

process recess

newsbits: teaparty fools, old dogs, new dates

- This is retro-magic.

- This is current magic.

- This is anit-magic. In fact, its just disgusting. Remeber how for the last 8 years people were telling you "you lost, suck it up?" I think its pretty obvious there's a huge faction in America that just likes to be angry, and if Iraq is "taken care of" its time to move the anger back home. Of course most of these people are getting their taxes CUT, and where was their venom when Bush put a few trillion into a war that didn't need to be waged?

- Speaking of The Other Office re: yesterday's post, The SFGate adds: Amy Poehler's "Office"-not-a-spinoff is "such a blatant rip-off of 'The Office' that it makes you wonder if a backroom deal between Gervais and NBC hasn't already been cut."

- What the WHAT? Oh, Rupert Everett...
- Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince has been bumped up to Wednesday July 15th.

- Really Disney? I hope they actually turn into dogs, since its apparently the only way I can stomache John Travolta after Bolt.- The Onion is great at lists. Case in point: 24 Great Films to Never See Again...because they're too painful. Lately I'm inclined to not see them at all, simply because I have a enough of my mind, I don't need to be reminded that life can be unbearably awful.

newsbits: x-kids, housewives, and michael vick

- No, its not April Fools, Texas Govenor Rick Perry really did say Texas could secede. Even weirder: growing up in Texas, I know that were the state to secede, the plan is to break the state/country into 5 smaller states. Like Voltron.

- Like Wolverine, the pilot for Caprica leaked onto the internets. I didn't go looking for Wolverine because I want to see a finished movie in an actual movie theatre. I didn't go looking for Caprica because I simply don't care.

- Is NBC coming back to life? I dunno. I enjoyed Southland a lot, but can easily see how it could veer into generic TV copshow territory, and I think Parks and Recreation should just be called The Other Office -- in which case it would simply be an inferior spin-off that has better ads than actual episodes.

- Crazy rich people are helping Bravo's ratings surge. My friend Matt has me watching Real Housewives of New York, which I admit is strangely compelling if you watch it with a bitchy friend who can call everyone out on their shit. Attempts to watch a mini-marathon of Orange County proved casting is everything.

- Lauren Shuler Donner let loose that X-Men First Class will be another prequel, focusing on Scott, Jean, and Beast (at least). I'm not really put off by the idea, I'm just unsure if its going to be set in the 80's, or will be a weird current-day reboot/prequel conundrum thing. I think X-Men Origins: Wolverine looks like mindless action-fare, and the script for X-Men Origins: Magneto was suprisingly pretty awesome, so we'll see. It is sort of sad to see the franchise impload and cannibalize on itself.

- Michael Vick wants his own reality show. If its about him living in inhumane conditions, being beaten, and fighting for his life before an eventual and brutal death, I say give it to him.

newsbits: HBO's democracy, GM, and Johnny Quest

- After a good start with Recount, HBO has decided to adapt every political memoir. Well, not exactly, but they are making Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime, on top of The Special Relationship with Dennis Quaid and Julianne Moore as Bill and Hillary.

- Idol castaway Scott MacIntyre had a bad kidney transplant, but he didn't want it glorified on the show so he kept it secret. One can only wish Danny "Angel of Death" Gokey had done the same.

- GM Recalls more than a million cars over fire concerns. I think that somewhere, somehow, a General Motors VooDoo doll is in play.

- Why do the new Terminator Salvation toys looks like the old T2 and Aliens toys from the early 90's?
- I can't even be bothered to make a poster review for the Tale of Desperaux. You would think that with Gary Ross and that cast attached it could've been something special. I found the book to be enjoyable, but very slight, and not even Ross could expand it. I think Monster House and Wall-E have visually ruined me from all other CGI films.

- Zac Efron is playing Johnny Quest in a movie not called Johnny Quest. Apparently the thinking is Warner's wants to avoid the 60's nostalgia car-wreck that was Speed Racer. Or something.

commissioned

2 from a series of 3.

newsbits: sorkin, dubai, heroin, & batman

- Have you met Susan Boyle yet? You should.

- Astonished that Showtime has passed on ALL their pilots. That's about $15-20 million dollars they'll never get back.

- Rumors of Aaron Sorkin returning to TV have me excited, if only because the rumored new show sounds like Sports Night meets West Wing's Capital Beat, which is something I can get on board with. Sorkin's a wonk, and his wit is best applied to the political process.

- Never cared for Dubai, now I really don't.

- Heroin is now cheaper than a six-pack of beer. The headline says pretty much everything.

- New episodes of Batman: The Brave and the Bold start again on Friday, May 1 with "Night of the Huntress!" Possibly the best animated series on TV, other than the imaginary one in my head that I'm working on.

- The fact Wizard had Heroes as their number one "fan favorite" show is a sham. Neither Battlestar or Sarah Connor are perfect by any means, but Heroes? The uneven pilot of Fringe is better than Heroes on its best day.

- Speaking of Fringe, I have them stockpiled on the DVR. I hear it keeps getting better, and Leonard Nimoy is apparently coming on as the mysterious big bad in the finale -- one can only hope he's to this show as Lena Olin was to Alias.

- The official Star Trek movie site - which is pretty cool - feautres music from Michael Giacchino's score. I think it sounds like LOST in Space (get it? Lost? In Space?), but then again, it isn't a major action cue.

- Simon Cowell is "threatening" to leave American Idol. He judges 3 shows a year - somewhat concurrently (Idol, Britains Got Talent and X-Factor in the UK). This weekend Talent premiered (see: Susan Boyle) and during the week he's in America for Idol. No wonder he's cranky.

- Rumor has it that the next 3 Doctor Who specials will air in November, followed by a 2-part Christmas special (Does this mean 2 nights? 2 hours in 1 night? Dunno.) The Special rumored to air in November got a little trailer after "Planet of the Dead." It'll be called The Waters of Mars.

downtime / newsfeed

After a particularly grueling week, we decided to postone work until today (monday) and actually have a weekend.

After taking Matilda to the vet (she's got kennel cough) we went on a hike, cleaned the house, and had a relaxing evening with friends watching the new Doctor Who.

On Sunday we took Amtrack down to San Juan Capistrano for Easter with the non-Grandparents. Woke up at 8. Drunk on Mimosas by 11. Full by 12. Home by 3. I spent the day in a fugue state watching HGTV while Boy played Resident Evil 5 (which apparently isn't as good as 4).

I had hopes to see I Love You, Man, but that'll have to wait for another day.

In stead of sending out emails to my friends throughout the day, what if I just start posting little links and newsfeeds?

review: adventureland

two rocks and a cup of water

If one finds themselves swamped in work and needs something unusual and soothing (and has exhausted their Sigur Rós playlist), you could do worse than Massive Attack's Danny the Dog.

Minimalist and haunting, this is surprisingly the score to the Jet Li movie Unleashed. Crazy.