Happy Birthday, Octo!!

Happy, Happy birthday to this awesome guy.  An amazing brother, husband, father, uncle and friend.  Love you so much!

What it would be like if your emails were real life

Thanks, Internet!: The Most Emotionless Slingshot Rider Set To Simon And Garfunkel's 'The Sound Of Silence'

From geekology, This is a video of an emotionless Slingshot rider set to Simon And Garfunkel's classic 'The Sound Of Silence.' It is the very reason I log onto the internet every morning. Also, why is this guy so emotionless? You think he used to be a human cannonball in a circus? I bet he used to be a human cannonball in a circus. "Next time I want you to cut the cords before we reach the top," I imagine him telling the ride operator as he got off.

WTF? 'Monster Hunt' trailer

Box Office

From darkhorizone, Critics have long despised his films, but the appeal of the Adam Sandler comedy label amongst wider audiences seems to be on the wane too. Despite a fun high-concept, the critically derided Sandler-led "Pixels" opened this weekend to $24 million and second place.

It fell behind Disney's "Ant-Man" which scored first place and $24.8 million in its second outing, bringing it to a $106.1 million stateside haul. Both films opened in the wake of a cinema shooting in Louisiana which saw three deaths and nine injuries, and has prompted discussion of consumers steering clear of cinemas.

Two other new films opened. Fox's "Paper Towns," the next film from social media celeb and "The Fault in Our Stars" author John Green, opened to $12.5 million which was only about half what was projected. The $12 million budget means it'll be profitable, but it certainly hasn't gone past the core base like 'Fault' seemed to.

The other was the Jake Gyllenhaal-led boxing drama "Southpaw" which scored $16.5 million and proved better than expectations, helped by Gyllenhaal getting out there and doing publicity on a lot of sporting outlets.

"Minions" and "Trainwreck" picked up $22.1 million and $17.3 million respectively, while "Jurassic World" scored $6.9 million and flew past "Marvel's The Avengers" to score the third highest title on the domestic all-time box-office list with $623.8 million. Bill Condon's "Mr. Holmes" continues going strong in limited release with $2.8 million in its second week.

Don’t Cry for Me, I’m Already Dead (is the name of this thing I want you to read)

Take a moment to read this short Simpsons-related comic by Rebecca Sugar, creator of Cartoon Network’s Steven Universe.

(Picture only marginally related.)

Well That Was Something: Trippy Animation Of Edvard Munch's The Scream Set To Pink Floyd

From slashfilm, This is a video imagining Edvard Munch's iconic painting "The Scream" as a short animation, complete with Pink Floyd's 'The Great Gig In The Sky' serving as the soundtrack. It was just the right amount of weird and beautiful. Like kissing a frog. Jk jk, there is nothing weird about kissing a frog, it is only beautiful. Also, if anybody is looking for a prince, there definitely aren't any at the two Petcos closest to my house.

Average US Movie Ticket Price Climbs to All-Time High

From slashfilm, Sorry everyone, but it’s that time again. The last time we had a shocked, raised-eyebrow update on the average price of movie tickets was in 2013, when the average US price climbed to a record $8.38. (Which might not really seem that bad, depending on where you live; that’s just over half the price of an evening ticket at the multiplex closest to my house, to say nothing of seeing a 3D IMAX presentation.)

Now the average US movie ticket price has climbed again. The good news: it’s still under nine bucks. The bad: we’ll probably have to write this story again, and sooner rather than later.

THR reports the average US movie ticket price is now $8.61, which is 3.36% more than the average for this quarter last year, and quite a lot more than the $8.12 average for the first quarter of 2015, which didn’t have as many 3D and event movie releases.

Prices like that, bolstered by 3D surcharges and higher IMAX prices, help set records. That’s one reason Jurassic World justclimbed to the #3 spot on the all-time box office earners list.

Doing a rough calculation from domestic grosses ($614m) versus average ticket price ($8.61) leads to a guesstimate of about 71.4m tickets sold in the US for Jurassic World. By contrast, the same math for Jurassic Park ($357m domestic gross against $4.14 average 1993 ticket price) leads to a guesstimate of 86.2m tickets sold for Spielberg’s first film.

That’s nearly a 15m difference in ticket sales, a vast discrepancy that suggests the dismal downward attendance spiral of which the entire industry is aware. If Jurassic World sold as many tickets as Jurassic Park, it would be closer to the $750m mark right now, in domestic dollars alone.

And, of course, Jurassic World likely had a significant trade in 3D and IMAX ticket sales, in which case its own individual average ticket price could be significantly higher than $8.61, meaning it put even fewer butts in seats than that basic calculation suggests.

So we trumpet box office numbers instead of ticket sales, and records are set, and everything is hunky-dory, right?

One question is: how long will this average hold? The fourth quarter of 2015 will be very busy, with new releases including the final Hunger Games movie, Pixar’s second film of the year The Good Dinosaur, and that little film Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Expect to hear some new box office record reporting in December and January thanks to Star Wars; we’ll see if we have to revisit the subject of the average ticket price then, too.

'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Went Even More Old-School with the Effects Than We Realized

From iwatchstuff, We've already had a couple looks at the ways The Force Awakens will be a throwback to the practical effects work of old. We've also already seen that the aged Millennium Falcon still has its little holographic chess (dejarik) table. Now, Adam Savage brings word that said little chess table thing will have the most practical, old-school effects of all: stop motion!

Speaking to io9, the Mythbusters host revealed that the new Star Wars film will imitate the dejarik of A New Hope with not just the same animation techniques but the same animator, legendary go-motion innovator Phil Tippet.

"I got to go watch him shoot it," Savage said. "It was so cool--the old school technology. Theoldest school technology: his animation. And it's beautiful."

So rest assured that those tabletop creatures will still lumber about with the slightly awkward, unnatural movements of current-day Harrison Ford.

Mr. Potato Head Is Back: Don Rickles Returns For Toy Story 4

From slashfilm, Tim Allen and Tom Hanks have already confirmed they are returning for Toy Story 4, but what about the rest of the toy box gang? Well we now know comedian Don Rickles will officially reprise his role as Mr. Potato Head in the fourth installment of the Pixar animated film series

89-year-old comedian Don Rickles confirmed the news to Closer Weekly:


“They just signed me to do the fourth Toy Story. We start [work on it] in September, and I’m very delighted with that. … “When John [Lasseter] approached me for the first one, I said, ‘I don’t do comedy with cartoons, dummies and toys. Leave me alone.’ And [John] said, ‘No, you’re gonna love this!’ Then he told me the money and how nice it was going to be and, I said, ‘Yeah, I can give it a try.’ All of a sudden it’s going on 17 years.”

Rickles’ returning for Toy Story 4 shouldn’t come as a big surprise. A fourth Toy Story film has been rumored to be in the works for the last five years now. Last year Toy Story 4 was officially announced as it was revealed that John Lasseter would return to direct a screenplay written by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack based on a story dreamed up by the Pixar dream team of Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter and Lee Unkrich. Lasseter has insisted thatthe sequel is not about money, but they came up with a great story idea worth exploring.

We still have no idea what the story will be about (but that didn’t stop us all from taking some guesses), but it is expected to reunite Woody, Buzz and the whole gang in an all new adventure. Pixar animation studio president Jim Morris has said that the new film will not be a continuation of the story of Toy Story 3, offering only some vague hints about the film’s plot:


It is not a continuation of the end of the story of Toy Story 3. Temporarily it is, but it will be a love story. It will be a romantic comedy. It will not put much focus on the interaction between the characters and children. I think it will be a very good movie.

Toy Story 4, which will hit theaters on June 16, 2017, will be co-directed by Josh Cooley, the head of story on Inside Out.

Check out 11 minutes of 'The Muppets'

James Bond "Spectre" trailer!

My last Newbury Comics pint glass

Once I had eight of these.  I think at least six made it to California, and I believe five made it to LA.  But only one made it to this house.  This one, right here.  Doesn't that water look refreshing?

I've been in the mood to post more.

Fan Edit Combines Key Man of Steel Scene With BvS Trailer Bits to Show Why Batfleck Is Yelling

From toplessrobot, Well, YOU try writing a headline that contains all the relevant information AND fits in a Tweet! Basically, what we have here is all the "Bruce Wayne in Metropolis" stuff from the latest Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice trailer, inserted into Man of Steel at the appropriate time so you can see both why Bruce Wayne is upset, and why he's unfairly blaming Superman for the actions of Zod.

Monsters: Dark Continent

2014  *1/2

This is the new review!  The more I thought about this movie while at work today, the more it pissed me off.  So I'm lowering its rating a half star and I'm going to bitch about it more!  You are there!

First of all, when I quickly wrote the first review in the morning before leaving for work, I used this pic as my illustration:

I really should not have done that, as it implies that this movie is about monsters in some way.  Oh, there is a scene in which a helicopter flies over a herd of monsters, and one of them does lunge its tentacled mouth-head at it, but that happens on the soldiers' first day and that is pretty much the end of the giant monster herds for you the viewer.  You see that other picture up there?  That's your movie.  Stressed-out desert soldiers.

The thing that's been slowly burning in me all day is this:  while obnoxiously avoiding the plot implied by its title and advertising, this scratchy armpit of a movie can't get enough of playing "real" and "topical."  So much so that I was actually myself a little stymied to call its bullshit, because I want to respect real soldiers who are dealing with intense realities in real deserts right this very minute.  And I do, of course, respect all those people.  And while I'm respecting people, the actors and crew all do a decent job with what they've been tasked with.

Unfortunately, that job is to spool out as many shopworn war movie tropes the writers could think to cram in there.  Even the basic plot is a cheap move:  the cells or spores or whatever from the monsters in northern Mexico are now in the Middle East.  Because of course!  What's an area more politically charged and topical than Mexico?  Bam, monsters!  Which country?  Don't know!  It's the Middle East, who cares?

What's terrible is that the first Monsters had such a subtly wrought subtext about American influence in foreign countries, and the sequel just dumps commentary on top of that like a barrel of stinky fish.

I could expound further, but it's not worth my time.  This movie is a catalog of crap.  It doesn't deserve to follow its predecessor, and it doesn't deserve to be called horror or sci-fi.  I've seen horror movies that are actually porn, and I've seen monster movies that don't have enough monster.  Roll that into one movie and it would still blow this movie away.  Waiting for these monsters to come was an excruciating exercise for which I was rewarded nothing, getting instead some overbaked "statement" I never asked for.  It left me feeling betrayed.

At least the other fake-out flick is porn!  Sheesh!

Box Office

From ew, Marvel’s latest superhero film debuted to an estimated $58 million this weekend, falling just short of initial estimates but still outstripping Minions to snag first place. On one hand, Ant-Man failed to meet expectations of $60 to $65 million, and it earned the weakest debut ever for a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie (unless you count The Incredible Hulk, which opened to $55.4 million in 2008). But Paul Rudd’s superhero debut still earned first place, which means that the MCU is now 12 for 12 for #1 openings (and that’s including The Incredible Hulk). Ant-Man was never expected to reach Avengers-level numbers at the box office, and although it didn’t manage to crack $60 million, it wasn’t too far off from other MCU debuts likeCaptain America: The First Avenger ($65.1 million) and Thor ($65.7 million).

But even though Ant-Man came in first place, the biggest winner of the weekend might actually be Trainwreck. Even though it placed third with an estimated $30.2 million, that’s well above early predictions, which had Amy Schumer’s debut landing somewhere in the mid to high teens. Even though Schumer has basically ruled TV these past few months (and she’s proved that she’s hot enough to be on television), this was the first real test of whether she could carry a feature film. Based on these box office numbers (and generally solid reviews), we should expect to see more from Schumer on the big screen soon.

Meanwhile, Minions took a pretty steep hit of 57 percent in its second weekend, falling to an estimated $50.2 million. The Despicable Me spinoff topped the charts last weekend, earning the second biggest animated debut ever, and this weekend brought its domestic total to a whopping $216.7 million after only 10 days. At the same time, Inside Out regained its lead over Jurassic World, snagging fourth place by only about $300,000. But Jurassic World did get some good news this weekend: Its domestic total is now $611.1 million, making it only the fourth film in history to cross $600 million at the domestic box office.

Here are this weekend’s top five at the box office:

1. Ant-Man — $58 million
2. Minions — $50.2 million
3. Trainwreck — $30.2 million
4. Inside Out — $11.7 million
5. Jurassic World — $11.4 million

Ash vs Evil Dead trailer!

Octopunk sez:  You know when JPX posts something and we all forget to watch it and later he comments that we should watch it but now the post’s down beneath some other stuff?

This deserves another look so I moved it up.  I’ll tell you what I didn’t like about this trailer:  nothing!  It’s all gold.  Find yourself three and a third minutes and check it out.

Supercut of some of the worst special effects ever

The Worst Movie Special Effects Ever Compilation by worldwideinterweb

Berke Breathed brings back 'Bloom County'!

(CNN)"Bloom County" is back on the beat.

On Sunday, cartoonist Berkeley Breathed -- who created the Pulitzer Prize-winning comic strip "Bloom County" -- announced on Facebook that he was returning to the strip, and he followed it up Monday with the first publication of "Bloom County 2015."

A return after 25 years. Feels like going home.Posted by Berkeley Breathed on Sunday, July 12, 2015

Posted by Berkeley Breathed on Monday, July 13, 2015

Fans were immediately besotted with the return of Opus the Penguin and the ever-cynical Milo Bloom.

This makes me unreasonably happy - Opus the Penguin is coming back! Berkeley Breathed Returning to Bloom County http://t.co/JNJdM0C16v— Daryl Orts (@DarylOrts) July 13, 2015

This is pretty much how I feel knowing Bloom County is back. pic.twitter.com/xFxKHpeqbN— Jeff Edelstein (@jeffedelstein) July 13, 2015

Today is going to be a great day. Bloom County returns. https://t.co/oswr2rhpNM— Will McAvoy (@WillMcAvoyACN) July 13, 2015

"This makes me unreasonably happy - Opus the Penguin is coming back!" tweeted Daryl Orts.

Other fans posted photos of Opus lying in the strip's bucolic meadow or favorite editions of the 1980s strip.

Though Breathed didn't give a specific reason, he alluded to the appearance of a certain billionaire presidential candidate as an impetus.

"This creator can't precisely deny that the chap you mention had nothing to do with it," he said in response to Larry Warshall, who posited that Donald Trump had prompted Breathed to bring back the "Bloom County" gang.

Before the Internet

During its run from 1980-89, "Bloom County" was one of the most popular strips in America, up there with "Doonesbury" (to which it was often compared) and "Calvin and Hobbes."

The strip began as "The Academia Waltz," which Breathed created while a student at the University of Texas. In converting it to "Bloom County," he moved the setting to the household ofMilo Bloom, a wisecracking child newspaper reporter.

Besides Milo and Opus, the gang included:

• Binkley, a neurotic boy about Bloom's age who was forever terrorized by his Anxiety Closet.

• Bill the Cat, an absurd feline -- a response to "Garfield" mania -- who hawked up hairballs, said "Ack" and "Pftttb" and ran for president.

• Steve Dallas, a conniving lawyer who embodied the worst of '80s yuppie excess.

• Cutter John, a wheelchair-bound Vietnam veteran and often the strip's conscience.

Topics of the strip were often political, making it a hot button of the Reagan era. Besides Bill the Cat's run for president, there were plotlines concerning moral hypocrisy, rampant commercialism and heavy-metal music. Breathed named names, which sometimes got him in hot water.

"It was shocking only because the Internet had yet to be invented," Breathed told Comics Alliance in 2014.

At its height, "Bloom County" -- which started in about 40 newspapers -- was carried in about 1,200. Its merchandise, particularly Opus and Bill the Cat mugs and renderings, was a huge seller. Breathed won the Pulitzer for editorial cartooning in 1987.

"It got the attention ... of the people who bought books and T-shirts and wrote the articles," Breathed told Comics Alliance. "The readership was relatively narrow ... but very, very intense and loyal and protective."

Back to the grind?

But Breathed -- who often signed his name as a mirror image -- grew tired of the daily grind and announced the end of the strip in 1989.

He returned with a weekly Sunday strip, "Outland," the next year. "Outland" eventually added some "Bloom County" characters and ran until 1995. Breathed returned to comic strips with another weekly, "Opus," in 2003. It ran until 2008.

Rather than comic strips, since the 1990s, Breathed has primarily dedicated himself to children's books, including "A Wish for Wings That Work" and "Mars Needs Moms" (which became a movie in 2011).

Though he told Comics Alliance that he planned to focus on movies, it appears he still sees possibilities in "Bloom County." After all, he had a lot of fun with Trump in the '80s.

As Bill the Cat might say -- proudly -- "Ack."

"Suicide Squad" trailer is insane!

Happy Birthday, Abduscias!!!

I hope you and Kane Hodder (run!) are having a nice day!

The 'Trick 'r Treat' director finally made another horror movie!

Official description,

When his dysfunctional family clashes over the holidays, young Max (Emjay Anthony) is disillusioned and turns his back on Christmas. Little does he know, this lack of festive spirit has unleashed the wrath of Krampus: a demonic force of ancient evil intent on punishing non-believers.

All hell breaks loose as beloved holiday icons take on a monstrous life of their own, laying siege to the fractured family's home and forcing them to fight for each other if they hope to survive.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Comic-Con 2015 Reel

Check out this awesome behind-the-scenes look at Star Wars:  The Force Awakens.  You will see some awesome new footage including creatures, characters, and action!  I have goosebumps.

'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice' - Comic-Con trailer looks stunning!

Surprise Star Wars Concert

[Buzzfeed]
At the end of the epic Star Wars: The Force Awakens panel at San Diego Comic-Con on Friday, director J.J. Abrams announced a surprise free concert of Star Wars music for the 6,500 fans in attendance — happening immediately after the panel was over.

 

Read about it here.  Amazing!!

Ben Affleck Starring in and Directing Batman Solo Movie With Geoff Johns Writing

From slashfilm, The Warner Bros. panel doesn’t begin at Comic Con until Saturday morning, but big news has already hit.Ben Affleck will star in a solo Batman film to follow the Justice League film, and he’ll also direct the movie, as rumored not long ago. The production will follow Affleck’s adaptation of the novel Live By Night, which was just formally set by Warner Bros. this week. But there’s more of a development for the project that comes in the form of a co-writer with a great deal of DC experience.

Deadline reports that Ben Affleck’s involvement seems to be even deeper than starring and directing. The precise release plan for this film is unclear, but given the timeline of various productions, this will be a couple years down the road. 2018 has been the rumored release window for a stand alone Batman feature film.

He’ll also co-write with DC Comics Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns, who is well known for his work on The WB/CW’s Smallville, Arrow and The Flash. Johns is known for his contributions to a bunch of different comic book series including Green Lantern, Aquaman, Batman, Justice League, The Flash and Superman.

Affleck and Johns have already got a screenplay cooking, and that their script may be turned in this Summer, well before Affleck begins production on Live By Night. That non-Batman film was originally set for October 2016 but delayed when the DC Comics films took priority. We still don’t know the release date for Live By Night, nor whether this new Batman movie will push that movie around further (it is possible).

We don’t know what the story of a Batman solo film might be, much less how it will relate to the two DC films featuring Batman that will be released beforehand. We’ve known that Warner Bros. wanted to do solo Batman films ever since WB made the big DC schedule announcement last year, and we’ve long guessed that Affleck would likely be the director. Rumor had it that the movie was to be titled The Batman.

But whether this will carry on the chronological series of events begun in Man of Steel or veer off in a related but different direction remains to be seen. It is most likely that the film will cary on the story chronology of the other DC comics movies as Warner Bros hopes to build a cinematic universe to compete with Marvel/Disney.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is set for release in March 2016, and Justice League is set for November 2017.

Quadrocopter Disguised As Snoopy's Flying Doghouse

From geekology, This is a video of the quadrocopter built by Otto Dieffenbach to resemble Snoopy and his flying doghouse. He did a great job. Snoopy's head even turns from side to side for ADDED REALISM. Apparently the quadrocopter was built to promote both San Diego Comic-Con and the upcoming Peanuts movie. Did you know this year is the first year I'm allowed back at Comic-Con? I forgot to get tickets though, so I'm going to dress up like security to sneak in, which, FUN FACT, is how I got banned in the first place. Everything in life is a cycle.

Star Wars Is Definitely Giving Han Solo His Own Movie

From cinemablend, Disney and Lucasfilm have continued their trend of hiring sharp young cinematic minds to handle their rapidly expanding Star Wars universe. They’ve now grabbedLego Movie directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller to helm one of the standalone spinoff movies, and they’ve been given one of the franchise’s most beloved characters: Han Solo.

Just announced at StarWars.com Lord and Miller, who was an intern at Lucasfilm and inside a stormtrooper suit in one of George Lucas’ special editions, have been tasked with bringing a young Han Solo to movie theaters everywhere. It will reportedly be their next directorial project, and they released a statement that says:

This is the first film we've worked on that seems like a good idea to begin with. We promise to take risks, to give the audience a fresh experience, and we pledge ourselves to be faithful stewards of these characters who mean so much to us. This is a dream come true for us. And not the kind of dream where you're late for work and all your clothes are made of pudding, but the kind of dream where you get to make a film with some of the greatest characters ever, in a film franchise you've loved since before you can remember having dreams at all.


As much as I’m not a huge fan of the idea of a movie centered on a young Han Solo—creating a young version of such an iconic character is problematic in any number of ways—if anyone is going to do it, Lord and Miller are aboud as close to a perfect choice as you're going to get. Who expected a 21 Jump Street reboot to be good? And the Lego Movie looked pretty forgettable, but wound up being one of the best movies of the year.

Lord and Miller are clever and sharp, and have their fingers on the pulse of what people want, as well as being respectful to the source material. It will be interesting to see how much input the duo has on the script and story. As it stands now, Joe and Lawrence Kasdan are handling the script, and the official logline is:
The story focuses on how young Han Solo became the smuggler, thief, and scoundrel whom Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi first encountered in the cantina at Mos Eisley.

That sounds like your standard origin story, and what you would expect to learn from a tale about the early days of Han Solo. We’re curious to see if, now that this is happening, we encounter Han’s wife, Sana Solo, who we met a while back in one of the recent Star Wars comics published by Marvel. Those are official canon now, so it is entirely possible we’re going to see what happened there.

It’s also going to be interesting to see what impact this has on a variety of other projects. Lord and Miller are a hot commodity and have a lot of things going right now, including producing an animated Spider-Man project for Sony, as well as The Lego Batman Movie, Ninjago, and The Lego Movie Sequel. They’ve also been linked to DC’s upcoming Ezra Miller-starring adaptation of The Flash, though likely means the duo are leaving that picture.

Lord and Miller’s young Han Solo movie will be the fourth new Star Wars movie we get, preceded by J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Gareth Edwards’Star Wars: Rogue One, and Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: Episode VIII. It is scheduled for release May 25, 2018.

Harry Shearer returning to The Simpsons

From EW, Simpsons fans will find this turn of events nothing short of excellent:Seven weeks after tweeting that he was exiting the animated comedy, EW has learned that Harry Shearer—the voice of Mr. Burns, Ned Flanders, Smithers and a flurry of other memorable characters—has agreed to rejoin Fox’s forever-running animated comedy.

We repeat: Burns is back.

Shearer has signed the same contract as did the other five primary voice actors—Dan Castellaneta, Yeardley Smith, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, and Hank Azaria—keeping the show’s original cast fully intact, EW has learned. These deals, which run for four seasons (including a network option for seasons 29 and 30), are estimated at more than $300,000 per episode. Fox recently renewed The Simpsons for a 27th and 28th season, which will bring its episode tally to 625.

Back in May, Shearer, who had battled with the studio/network previously over compensation, indicated that his departure was not tied to a money issue, but rather the flexibility in his schedule. The actor—who hosts the radio program Le Show and stars in the web series Nixon’s The One—tweeted, “I wanted what we’ve always had: the freedom to do other work.” Simpsons executive producer Al Jean told EW the following day that he found that tweet confusing, saying, “Everybody on the show does lots of outside projects. He actually gets to record on the phone and do the [table] reads on the phone. So we’ve never kept him from doing that stuff.” In that interview, Jean also said that the producers were “still hoping he might come back. Nothing’s done ‘til it’s done.” And executive producer James L. Brooks took to Twitter to reach out to Shearer: “Hey, we tried. We’re still trying. Harry, let’s talk.” On May 15, Shearer already appeared to be warming to the prospect of reconciliation, telling CNNMoney, “Stay tuned,” when asked about the possibility of a return. Two weeks later, during a Twitter exchange with a Simpsons fan, he replied: “Discussions are happening at a level where decisions can be made.”

In order for the Simpsons producers to remain on schedule, they commenced production on season 27 without him. (In any case, they already had seven holdover episodes from last season in the can, and those include Shearer’s voices.) Jean told EW last month that if Shearer did not change his mind and return, his impressive roster of characters—which also include Seymour Skinner, Lenny, Dr. Hibbert, Kent Brockman, Reverend Lovejoy and Otto—would not be retired; new cast members would be hired to continue voicing those roles. Shearer’s deal was completed in enough time to avoid that scenario, and his temporary absence behind the scenes will not be significantly felt on the new season.

The season 27 premiere of The Simpsons will air, appropriately enough, on Sept. 27.

'Can't Buy Me Love' star Amanda Peterson dies at 43

From usatoday, Actress Amanda Peterson, whose most famous role was in the 1987 romantic comedy Can't Buy Me Love, has died at age 43.

Sgt. Mike Moran with the Greeley, Colo., police department told the Associated Press that Peterson's body was found alone in an apartment Sunday. Moran said an investigation is ongoing but no other information was available.

Peterson's mother, Sylvia Peterson, told CNN that the actress died Friday morning.

"It's a big loss. Such a loveable person," Peterson told CNN. "She had some medical problems with her heart but we don't know the cause yet."

Peterson first appeared on the big screen at age 9 as a dancer in the 1982 adaptation of the play Annie, directed by John Huston. She would go on to make several television appearances, including an episode of Silver Spoons with Ricky Schroder.

Peterson's next film role was as Ethan Hawke's crush in the 1985 Sci-Fi comedyExplorers.

The role that brought her the most fame was as cheerleader Cindy Mancini, playing opposite Patrick Dempsey in Can't Buy Me Love. Dempsey played a high school nerd who pays the popular cheerleader Cindy to pretend to be his girlfriend. Of course, they end up really falling for each other.

Peterson's last film was Windrunner, in 1994, according to IMDB.com.

Happy Fourth of July, Horrorthon!

Well we just had our annual "watching the local parade end in our park down the street" tradition (which is way funner than watching it go by, because it was apparrently very slow this year), and now we're lolligagging around the house.  Later we'll go outside and watch fireworks.  Woo hoo America!

Everybody have a great time out there!

Oh yeah, I also had a free corn dog and cupcake!  Yes!