Kal-El now lives among us, thanks to Nicolas Cage and Alice Kim Cage. You know you can say what you want about how lame it is that Nicolas Cage named his son Kal-el, but you have to admit that any woman who will let her husband name their kid after a superhero is every comic geek's dream.
Number One to Nico: This woman is a keeper!
Now if I could just talk my wife into Alan Scott, Wally West, or Victor von Doom. Wait...wait...Mon-el...no! Validus! Awesome!
[Thanks to Poliblog for the lowdown.]
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Christopher Nolan's Next Film Filled With Magic and Mystery!
Christopher Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins) starts filming his next film,The Prestige, in January. The screenplay, adapted by Nolan's brother, is based on a novel by Christopher Priest which tells the tale of two rival magicians in Victorian England.
If you read the moviehole article linked above (click on the "The Prestige" link) you will notice that the film has some major comic book movie connections. Both Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale will star in the film.
Comic book geeks though should be careful not to confuse comic book writer Christopher J. Priest with British Science Fiction Giant Christopher Priest.
If you read the moviehole article linked above (click on the "The Prestige" link) you will notice that the film has some major comic book movie connections. Both Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale will star in the film.
Comic book geeks though should be careful not to confuse comic book writer Christopher J. Priest with British Science Fiction Giant Christopher Priest.
Monday, October 03, 2005
Roy Horn, "The Magic is Back!"
Roy Horn, Roy of "Siegfried and Roy," is walking short distances two years after being attacked on stage.
I have always been a big Siegfried and Roy fan and I was saddened by the incident, but this is good news.
By the way, if you ever get a chance to watch "Father of the Pride," the Dreamworks sit-com about S&R's animals, do so. The "family sitcom" part of the show is pretty standard fare, but the B storylines (which always involve S&R) are hilarious
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Paris Marriage...
Is off. I'm not all that shocked... she wasn't really toning down her act all that much.
Was it all publicity, then? Only the Parises and confidantes know...
Was it all publicity, then? Only the Parises and confidantes know...
Thursday, September 29, 2005
To Decrease Attendance, Attendant's Spoil Story
Airline employees are in a mild uproar regarding Flightplan, Jodie Foster's recent re-envisioning of the classic Hitchcock film The Lady Vanishes. Mirroring the classic Jodie Foster steps away from her seat on an airplane (in the original it was a train) only to find her daughter missing (in Lady it was a kindly old lady). There is a desperate search for the daughter and a mystery is solved. Just who has kidnapped her daughter and why?
Airline attendents were disappointed with the answer to those questions and have been asking people not to see the film, while at the same time revealing major plot points in their criticism. The media have covered the story from different angles with E! Online and The New York Daily News provide a spoiler warning, but Reuters reveals the mystery in the first paragraph offering no warning to potential viewers. They are obviously siding with the Airline employees in their attempt to spoil the plot of the movie and reduce viewership. ;-)
++++SPOILER ALERT BASED ON NEWS ARTICLES++++
Good news for Sean Bean fans, it appears that he is not the villain! A rare event indeed in American cinema.
If you want to read the spoiler left click and drag your cursor over it to make it more legible.
Airline attendents were disappointed with the answer to those questions and have been asking people not to see the film, while at the same time revealing major plot points in their criticism. The media have covered the story from different angles with E! Online and The New York Daily News provide a spoiler warning, but Reuters reveals the mystery in the first paragraph offering no warning to potential viewers. They are obviously siding with the Airline employees in their attempt to spoil the plot of the movie and reduce viewership. ;-)
++++SPOILER ALERT BASED ON NEWS ARTICLES++++
Good news for Sean Bean fans, it appears that he is not the villain! A rare event indeed in American cinema.
If you want to read the spoiler left click and drag your cursor over it to make it more legible.
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
The Value of Handcrafted Animation
As a young boy I was immensely fond of the special effects work of Ray Harryhausen the master of Stop Motion animation. (I have also been a fan of hand drawn animation, but that is a subject for another post.) Will the increased sophistication of computer graphics technology I had feared that I would soon hear a deathknell for stop motion. But it appears that the marketplace, as it so often does, is willing to expand and include rather than replace. We have seen this phenomenon before with Movies not destroying theatre, radio not destroying books. There are changes, sure, but for some forms of entertainment the market seems flexible.
According to this article byUSA Today this may be the case with Stop Motion animation as well. The success of Chicken Run, Wallace and Gromit, and the recent Corpse Bride hint that audiences like the "look" of stop motion animation. Naturally, it doesn't hurt that the stories in all these cases are well written, which seems to be the most important market force in animation (regardless of what Keane thinks with his shifting Disney to all CG). One thing struck me in the story though, with CG vs. hand drawn animation the costs are pretty much identical. It appears that costs in CG vs. stop motion, this isn't the case:
This bodes well indeed for well done stop motion.
According to this article byUSA Today this may be the case with Stop Motion animation as well. The success of Chicken Run, Wallace and Gromit, and the recent Corpse Bride hint that audiences like the "look" of stop motion animation. Naturally, it doesn't hurt that the stories in all these cases are well written, which seems to be the most important market force in animation (regardless of what Keane thinks with his shifting Disney to all CG). One thing struck me in the story though, with CG vs. hand drawn animation the costs are pretty much identical. It appears that costs in CG vs. stop motion, this isn't the case:
It's also cheaper. A stop-motion film typically costs $30 million to $50 million, while a big-studio CGI movie costs closer to $80 million. Bride cost about $40 million; Gromit was $30 million.
This bodes well indeed for well done stop motion.
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