Comic-Con Indy tidbit (and I mean tidbit)

From AICN, After welcoming the audience and saying hello to Comic-Con, Spielberg introduced Harrison Ford, completely decked out who was funny and full of life. Felt like Indiana Jones again. Ford introduced his side-kick. All the girls (and some guys) cheered and then he said, "This is my side-kick... Ray Winstone." Winstone was dressed exactly as Indiana Jones' partner should be dressed as... dusty, earth tones. Then Ford introduced Shia LaBeouf as "my other side-kick."

Shia was in his leather greaser outfit, but had a lot of scraggly growth... light beard. He just kept saying, "What the hell am I doing here? I mean, look at this group..." said he was totally out of place.

Then Spielberg abruptly stood up and said, "You guys hold it down... I have to get something." There was an uncomfortable few seconds then Spielberg walked back in with another director's chair. He opens it, revealing "Marion Ravenwood" stitched onto the chair. Then he brought Karen Allen out... Good God what a moment... she looks exactly the same!

Transformers Bumblebee Speakers

From Geekology, Brando is selling these dancing Transformers Bumblebee speakers for $58.90. The Bumblebee speakers will actually dance to your music and even play it back with Transformers sound effects.

In a twist of customized cool, Bumblebee takes your tunes and plays them back to you with TRANSFORMERS sound effects! Touch Bumblebee to mix beats with your music, or sit back and watch it dance!

The dancing sounds neat, but why would anybody want Transformers sound effects in their music? It'd be like buying a speaker to take a crap in your ear.

So what's the word on The Simpsons movie?

By Lisa Schwarzbaum

[mild spoilers]

Forty-two years in the making, 250 speaking character roles, an epic animated parable about sin, redemption, and mail-bearing owls that was first sketched out on the back of a takeout menu with a stubby pencil circulated among 18 writers who found themselves stranded en masse at Chicago's O'Hare airport one special Christmas Eve: The Simpsons Movie can't claim any such spectacle or creation mythology. And that's great news, especially for devotees of the profound and profoundly funny long-running TV show — we who have been wondering (and maybe even worrying) for some time what revered writer-producers James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Al Jean, and Mike Scully would do with three times the usual space to tell a Simpsons story. Would there be radical character development or stunt celebrity participation? Charming, image-enhancing voice-over work from presidential candidate Hillary Clinton? Would there be magic?

Turns out what they've done is make everything bigger, longer, and uncut, but let Homer be Homer, an average American screwup in a recognizable, screwed-up world of hypocrisy and lardy foodstuffs. The best thing about this long-awaited feature-length project, a classic Simpsonian interplay of family psychology, social commentary, and brainy visual and verbal jokes tossed off at rat-a-tat speed, is how relaxed it manages to be (or appears to be — the hard work is, for the most part, hidden), even as it expands, emotionally, to fill a bigger screen. Aware of its responsibilities to ticket buyers at all times — from the raucously clever opening to the last rewarding frame of the closing credits — this is a project that understands that the best TV-to-movie transitions emphasize depth, not length. When Bart looks at neighbor Ned Flanders with new eyes and thinks about the qualities that make a good father, that counts as big news.
So, yes, there's plot. There's the part where Homer adopts a pet pig and lovingly collects the porker's droppings in a backyard silo and then dumps the silo into Lake Springfield despite dire warnings about the town's looming environmental problems (Lisa Simpson's community lecture about local pollutants, ''An Irritating Truth,'' falls on unmotivated ears). Naturally, Homer doesn't think twice about his crime, because Homer never listens to anything except the chingy-chingy sound of the windup monkey clanging cymbals that is the soundtrack loop in his little brain. And yes, the toxic calamity gets so bad that the Environmental Protection Agency decides to entomb all of Springfield in an impermeable bubble — for starters. (Under the administration of a certain President Schwarzenegger, the EPA has been co-opted by a rich, ethically unencumbered plutocrat with the resonant name of Cargill, voiced with gusto by Albert Brooks.)
And, well, okay, the Simpson clan manages at one point to escape to Alaska, where there's a delightful moment involving a tap-dancing penguin (not so happy in the end for the penguin, but a thrill for Simpsons fans who count on the series' barbed pop cultural commentary) and a romantic interlude between husband and wife before family tensions come to a crisis. Also, Homer briefly rides a motorcycle, organizes a team of sled dogs, and embarks on a hallucinogenic trip, in no particular order. And there's a spectacular skateboard scene that rewards some two decades of loyalty, as a naked Bart streaks past everybody who ever walked the streets of Springfield.

But honestly, the ''action'' sequences sometimes falter, overstaying their welcome and turning into filler, because plot has never been what distinguishes The Simpsons, either on TV or in this movie. It's the d'oh!s. The Proustian value of doughnuts. The reliability of Homer's boorishness, the Comic Book Guy's obsessiveness, Milhouse's asthma attacks, the pleasures of the genius cast of regulars, voicing all those obstreperous residents. And the way one yellow family of four-fingered individualists — Homer and Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie, Grampa, and even the addled dog, Santa's Little Helper — are committed, in the face of all obstacles, to sticking together.

With limited spiritual help (''This book doesn't have any answers!'' Homer shrieks in church, riffling through the Bible for advice when Grampa falls to the floor in an apparent religious fit), and even less faith in government (''I was elected to lead, not to read,'' declares President Schwarzenegger), the Simpson center does hold. And The Simpsons Movie sweetly cradles one great American family. B+

It's all someone else's fault

From WWTDD, The Insider says a source very close to Lindsay Lohan claims she is innocent of any wrongdoing and her arrest two nights ago was simply a misunderstanding. The source says Lindsays SUV was racing through Santa Monica because she was being chased by paparazzi, she was not actually behind the wheel and she knew nothing about the cocaine in her pocket because she was wearing someone else's pants.

According to Lindsays friends, the night went like this:

- Lindsay was having a get together at her home. Several people will say she wasn't drinking, that she didn't even have a drink but at a certain point in the night, apparently, she fell off the wagon and did start drinking.

- When assistant Tarin Graham walked into the house, looking disheveled with teary red eyes, Lindsay was concerned that something had happened to her.

- There was some sort of altercation. Tarin either quit or Lindsay fired her. Tarin left and Lindsay followed.

- There were definitely two people in the car with Lindsay that night.

- Tarin's mother apparently made a police call b/c she was afraid someone was chasing her.

- Right now, they don't know who may have been chasing her. It could have been paparazzi.

- When the cops arrived, there were so many people in the parking lot that they automatically zeroed in on Lindsay. Apparently the altercation took place at about 1:30 in the a.m.

- Lindsay was strong-armed into taking a breathalyzer test. They say the cocaine was not Lindsay's, she was wearing someone else's pants.

And it just kinda goes on like that for a while. I think you get the idea. "Someone else's pants". It will seriously be one of the best days of my life if she goes to court with the "Someone Else's Pants" defense. She should be arrested just for that. Wait, did I say "arrested". I meant to say "shot".

Beowulf Trailer Makes Me Feel Old

From iwatchstuff, As you may have already inferred from the title of this post or your clairvoyant turtle, the trailer for Beowulf is now online.

I know Zemeckis totally has a boner for this live actiony animation stuff, probably because he's getting too lazy to properly film shit in his old age, but much as I try to keep an open mind, I hate it. It's not real enough to make me think I'm looking at real people, and it's not stylized enough to look cool as animation. Why the hell do I want to watch something drawn by people who aren't good enough to draw it freehand? "Hey, look what I drew on this tracing paper!" "Good job, that looks almost exactly like Garfield, and you managed not to eat the crayon this time."

It just looks like one of those stupid computer games where your little character walks around town and you start killing everybody because they're not real and watching them die is the only thing that's interesting. But then you can't make it to the next level because the object of the game was to make their crops grow and instead you brutally slaughtered them. I think Mao had the same problem.

Hollywood corners hard-core fans at Comic-Con

By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY

Welcome to Demographic-Con.

Where once Comic-Con was a place for devotees to buy and swap, the nation's largest comic-book convention, which begins today, has become Hollywood's favorite hunting ground.

Here, studio execs, TV producers and video game manufacturers hawk their wares as if they were pushing carnival rides. And some say it's robbed the spirit of the convention.

"A lot of old-school comic fans won't come here anymore," says Borys Kit, columnist for The Hollywood Reporter. "It's hard to get actual business done when you're wading through that many people. It's like an annual Woodstock for pop culture."

More than 125,000 people — most of them square in Hollywood's tantalizing 18- to 34-year-old target demographic — are expected at the four-day event.

Which may explain why Comic-Con had a wait list of about 300 films hoping to get even a sneak peek before fans.

"It's a way to reach the hard-core fans," says Brandon Gray of Box Office Mojo. "It may not be the original intent (of the convention), but Hollywood sees it's working, especially for science fiction and fantasy."

Among the expected heavyweights:
•Indiana Jones. Little is known about the latest Harrison Ford installment, but Paramount plans to bring something — and that's all the fanboys need.
•Beowulf. The classic tale gets a fanboy twist with a nude Angelina Jolie.
•J.J. Abrams. The Lost creator is a nerd king, and he'll be here to hawk Star Trek and his untitled Cloverfield project, which looks to be a mixture of Blair Witch and Independence Day.
•The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. The next episode in the Narnia franchise, which was a hit here in 2004.
•Marvel Studios. The royalty of Comic-Con, the studio will unveil peeks of Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk.
•Watchmen. Zack Snyder cemented his reputation when he brought 300 here last year and now offers a comic-book film about a slain superhero.
•Superbad. What better audience for a film about misfit nerds than, well, a Comic-Con audience?
•TV. Lost and Heroes will draw packed crowds. Bionic Woman comes with high expectations as well.
While filmmakers and executives concede that Comic-Con's fare has changed over the years, they say the convention's spirit has not.
"It's still for the fans," says Snyder. "And it's the best place to show them that you're making something for them that they'll enjoy."

Future gifts for Octopunk and Johnny?

From Geekology, Looking for the greatest hat ever? Look no further. club NAMCO is selling a Pac-Man Plush Head for $29.99. If wearing this on dates doesn't get you laid, nothing will. Well, except for maybe taping a picture of my face over yours.

Producers: `Cavemen' Not Racial Metaphor

By LYNN ELBER

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) - The producers of ABC's new "Cavemen" said Wednesday the comedy is much more than the insurance company commercials that inspired it, but isn't designed to be an ambitious allegory about race.
Geico's TV spots show highly evolved but shaggy-looking cavemen chafing at misconceptions about their sophistication and intelligence. The series, debuting Oct. 2, follows another trio of Cro-Magnons facing prejudice as they try to fit in contemporary society.

"If the show works, it will work because people care about these three guys under a lot of makeup and ... can relate to their problems and find them charming," producer Mike Schiff told the Television Critics Association's summer meeting.
The pilot is being re-shot, ABC said. The network and producers said they decided it jumped ahead too far in the characters' lives and failed to establish them properly.

Schiff and fellow producers responded to reporters' questions about the series, many of them focusing on parallels between the cavemen and black stereotypes and the pitfalls of turning an ad into a series.

The producers said the characters' creative potential and their "fish-out-of-water experience" was only touched on in the commercial spots. ABC obtained rights to the characters from Geico, which is not involved in the show.

It's unusual for characters from an advertising campaign to move into shows of their own, but not unprecedented. The CBS comedy "Baby Bob" featured a talking baby that had been used in several ads.

"We knew we'd be under a lot of scrutiny" adapting the Geico concept to a series, producer Will Speck said. "But I think it just makes our job a little harder."

There was no intention to have the Cro-Magnons represent any minority group, said his colleague, Josh Gordon.

"We're aware that the pilot (episode) seems to lean a little bit more in that direction. But in the episodes that we're coming up with now, we never saw them as, again, a stand-in for one group," Gordon said.

"I think it's really a show about acclimation more than anything, and that's something that everybody deals with, doesn't matter whether you are a minority or not," producer Joe Lawson said.
Lawson wrote the Geico commercials, which were directed by Gordon and Speck. The three co-developed the series starring Bill English, Nick Kroll and Sam Huntington.
Two of actors featured in the ads were unavailable for the series, the producers said, but another, Jeff Phillips, will be joining it.

One reporter asked why the cavemen don't ease their way by getting a shave and a haircut.
"There's a name for those kind of people, and they're called 'shavers,' and the cavemen community looks down on them," Gordon said.

Beach reading

From worstpreviews, The upcoming September issues of Empire Magazine will highlight the "heroes of 2008," and as a result some of our favorite characters made the cover. In addition to some pictures of Indiana Jones and Batman, there is a great action shot of Iron Man in full armor.In the film, a troubled billionaire Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) creates a life support suit to assist him after a life threatening accident, but he ultimately decides to use its technology to fight evil and crime.With Comic-Con starting tonight, we are hoping that Paramount will reveal some footage from the film, or at least give us a better quality poster. "

Iron Man" hits theaters on May 2nd, 2008.

Disney bans smoking

From cinemablend, Smoking is a funny thing. In fact, everything is funnier with a cigarette. Example – guy riding down the street on a bike. Not funny. Guy ridding down the street on a bike with a cigarette hanging from his mouth – funny. It’s a sign of desperation and complete submission to an addiction. In recent years, this comic device has been assaulted with anti-smoking campaigns. All Americans are, by now, familiar with Stand – the anti-smoking group. The funniest thing is that, while smoking is bad for you, it doesn’t tear apart families like alcohol. How many commercials have you seen today that glorified alcohol? Now this anti-smoking agenda is spilling into the cinema. Back in May, Josh ranted about the the MPAA campaigning for an R rating with any film that has smoking in it. Today, Yahoo! reported that Disney has banned all depictions of smoking from its films – the first Hollywood studio to do so.

Additionally, Disney will “discourage” smoking in films from its Touchstone and Miramax labels. And, Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger also said that the studio would place anti-smoking public service announcements on DVDs of any future films that feature cigarette smoking. While the first reaction to this type of censorship is extreme anger, it highlights the programmed mentality of Hollywood and audiences. Market segments are targeted and then sold entertainment in the forms of movies. Disney is primarily a family-oriented mass producer of movie entertainment, it’s really no surprise that they would jump on a popular public agenda. If you’re anything like me, when you hear this kind of news or see some anti-smoking commercial smacking you in the face with some “staggering statistics,” your first reaction is to run out and buy and smoke a pack of cigarettes just because you don’t like being told what is right and wrong. Then again, with the legislation banning smoking in public places passed in many states and this trend in cinema censorship, the anti-smoking agenda seems to be our generations red scare. Perhaps our government and corporations are just preparing us for a uniform future, where we all look the same, think the same and wear those sweet silver jumpsuits on our way to the moon or a neighboring planet. Or it could just be the man trampling on your God given right to smoke a damn cigarette if you want to.

The Hulk to Face Tim Blake Nelson

From SHH, Tim Blake Nelson has joined the cast of Marvel Studios' The Incredible Hulk, says The Hollywood Reporter.The movie, which Louis Leterrier is directing, sees Bruce Banner/Hulk on the run, trying to avoid capture long enough to cure the condition that turns him into a monster.Nelson will play a scientist named Samuel Sterns. In Hulk lore, Sterns, aka "The Leader," is one of the Hulk's major antagonists, a menial worker in a chemical research plant who is bombarded with gamma radiation. He emerges from his accident not only green-skinned but also superintelligent, with an oversized brain.Nelson joins a strong comic book movie cast that includes two-time Oscar nominee Edward Norton (Banner), Liv Tyler (Betty Ross), Tim Roth (villain Emil Blonsky/the Abomination) and William Hurt (General Ross, Betty's father).Zak Penn wrote the latest big-screen adventure of the green goliath, which Universal Pictures is distributing domestically June 13, 2008.