J.C.V.D. on 'J.C.V.D.', Public Shirtlessness

From iwatchstuff, MTV has a new interview up with Jean-Claude Van Damme, in which he discusses his dissatisfaction with previous roles, his park in the upcoming J.C.V.D., and future directorial projects, with such choices quotes as:

My body looks like 30 but my face looks like 50. But I cannot walk bare-chested in the streets.
After 37 movies, I said, "I will never do another movie I would not like." What Mabrouk did to me, it's like Scorsese did to De Niro years ago.

Worth reading if you're interested in why Van Damme turned down both Rush Hour ("I cannot go and do three somersaults. I would feel like a monkey.") and a Street Fighter sequel (sudden dignity?), or just for his lofty J.C.V.D. summary

Uwe Boll Sets 'Postal' to Release Against Indiana Jones

From bloodydisgusting, Uwe Boll, what an interesting personality, known for his promotional stunts he has yet to deliver a film that actually "performs" in the theaters - he's quickly becoming the anti-William Castle. Today he sent an e-mail out exclaiming that he will now release his horror-comedy Postal in theaters May 23, the same day as INDIANA JONES' return. "On the Indiana Jones weekend - May 23 - we will go out and destroy Indiana Jones in the Box Office! We all know that Harrison Ford is older as my grandpa and his time is up - would Michael Moore say!" Good luck with that. Read on to see what else he had to say.

Boll wasn't finished, "Spielberg gets sloppy. We saw that with War of the Worlds (why the fuck the older brother survived?) and also in parts of Jaws, E.T., Munich etc.! My performance in Postal as 'Nazi Theme Park Owner' outperforms easily Ben Kingsley in Schindler's List!"

Does he seriously think people will take him seriously?

In POSTAL: Living on Social Security and unemployed, DUDE desperately seeks employment, but instead finds a life of violent action and adventure when he teams up with his UNCLE DAVE, a financially strapped cult leader, in an effort to rip off an amusement park, only to find that the Taliban are trying the same heist simultaneously.

Good grief, bounty hunters get no respect

From galacticempire, In a move that falls into the category `Have we really become this paranoid?` eBay, in their wisdom, have banned the sale of the Star Wars Boba Fett SE 1:1 Scale Blaster citing that it goes against their policies.

eBay Shopowner Alex Holt (owner of MiT) was told:

"We appreciate that you chose eBay to list the following Fixed Price listing(s):

Star Wars BOBA FETT SE 1:1 SCALE BLASTER BNIB *SPECIAL*

However, your (s) breaches eBay's Firearms, Weapons, and Knives policy and has been removed. In accordance with our User Agreement, items prohibited by law or by eBay policy are not allowed on eBay. We notified members who placed bids on the item that the listing has been canceled.

Since buying and selling weapons is highly regulated in the UK and Ireland, and may harm eBay and its members, you're not allowed to list weapons on eBay.

Firearms include any component part of a firearm, sporting, collectible, curio & relic, signaling pistols, and antique firearms, regardless of their capability to fire a shot. Any item designed to discharge any shot, bullet or other missile is covered by this ban, regardless of that item's current ability to fire a shot. Replica and imitation firearms are also covered by this ban."

What's next? Will they ban Lightsabres?

Let's go the whole hog huh? Put a petition through parliament to stop Star Wars fans dressing up and walking around with fake blasters just in case!!

What I find interesting is, although they say they have a Firearms, Weapons, and Knives policy, there seems to be a hell of a lot of stuff to buy HERE that looks pretty dangerous...oh, hold on a minute, its only replica blasters that are dangerous!

eBay go on to say:

"For future reference, please know that due to the high volume of listings posted daily, items that violate our policies may appear on our site. We rely in part on members of the eBay community to report prohibited, questionable, or otherwise suspicious items to us. If an item has not been flagged or reported, it may remain on the site until it is brought to our attention.

Once the item is brought to our attention, we act as swiftly as possible to review and remove the items from the site, if warranted.

Thus, if you see an item listed on our site, it does not necessarily mean it is permitted."

I suggest they look at that whole SWORDS section then.

At the moment it seems the policy is only enforced for the UK and Ireland. No word on other countries.

Finally - Love Boat Season 1 released on DVD tomorrow!

Stephen Chow's (Shaolin Soccer guy) latest looks like fun!

Check out the trailer for CJ7 here

Blurry prop for sale on Ebay

From ebay, You are bidding on an original screen used prop from John Carpenter's 1982 masterpiece, "The Thing" starring Kurt Russell. Although largely derided upon its release, "The Thing" is now recognized as one of the great achievements in horror/sci-fi film history. The film's effects, created by FX wizard Rob Bottin, set a standard that has yet to be matched to this day and original props from Bottin's shop are extremely rare as most of the pieces were destroyed by fire on camera. The creature prop that you are bidding on was used during the film's infamous "blood test" sequence where Kurt Russell's character, McReady, has captured the members of his outpost in order to see who is actually , "The Thing". This is the creature that pops out of the petri dish. The prop was originally obtained from Henry Alvarez, Bottin's lead sculptor on The Thing and many other projects. It is 7 in wide and 5 in high and comes on a display in a glass case. The Thing stands beside Ridley Scott's "Alien" as the ultimate creature films of all time so don't miss this once in a lifetime chance to own a true relic of monster movie history.

'Pathology' Teaser Makes a Timely Reference

From iwatchstuff, Hey, remember when Napoleon Dynamite Fever swept the nation, spreading quickly from dorm rooms to workplaces until gruesomely quoting itself to death, its overly-quirky corpse torn apart and dragged to the clearance bins of Hot Topics? And how you thought that after the DVDs, the t-shirts, the quoting, the Halloween costumes, the posters, the talking dolls, and the continued casting of John Heder, there must be no way to sap more life from this now-hated product?

Wrong! The makers of the upcoming thriller Pathology have figured out one more disgusting way, and made it into a teaser. Hint: it involves cadavers, and it's exactly what you think it is.

See trailer here

Worst Star Wars figure set ever

Apparently they're still writing Bond books

From EW, Last July, Ian Fleming's estate went looking for someone to write a new James Bond novel in honor of the late author's 100th birthday this year. They found Sebastian Faulks, the English author perhaps best known for the novel Charlotte Gray, which was eventually made into a Cate Blanchett movie in 2001. Faulks' mission was to pick up the 007 tale back where Fleming had left it in his last Bond book, Octopussy and the Living Daylights, which was published posthumously in 1966. ''The idea,'' Faulks told EW.com last summer, when the deal was announced, ''was that it should read as though Fleming had written it.''

Now, Faulks' Bond novel, titled Devil May Care and credited to ''Sebastian Faulks writing as Ian Fleming,'' is ready for worldwide release on May 28 — the day on which Fleming would have turned 100. Plot details are under embargo, but EW.com has this exclusive sneak peek of the jacket art. Take a look. The shadowy, well-coiffed, and tuxedo-ed James Bond figure on the spine seems to indicate Bond fans could be in for an old-school treat.

JAMES BOND AND THE OFFICIAL PLOT SYNOPSIS

If you want to know the plot, go here

Urban legend flashback, Three Men and a Ghost

From x-entertainment, I don't protest that I'm merely the last of 560,000 websites to discuss the fabled Three Men and a Baby ghost, but I can't help myself. When news of this seeming specter poured into newscasts in 1990, my friends and I took it as proof positive that ghosts completely and totally existed.

Retelling the story is an almost needless formality, because everyone already knows it. Everyone…except frequent comment-leaver and mother-of-one, "kb." It's kb's fault that I get to tell the story with a clear conscience.

Millions around the world bore witness to the exploits of Ted Danson and the other two guys as they found themselves in the utterly hysterical position of raising an abandoned baby girl. What most moviegoers somehow missed was an otherwise forgettable scene where, if you look close, monsters will eat you:

As Three Men and a Baby moved to television airings and tape rentals, the world turned its eyes to the peculiar boy arrow-marked in the photo above. Neither an actor nor something seemingly of this world, the boy stood motionless, looking somewhere between stoic and fuzzy, as Danson and The Woman Portraying Danson's Mom acted their parts completely oblivious to the walking dead among them. It was impossible to imagine that this ghost-laden scene made it in the can without ever being caught by a member of the crew, and when things sound impossible, they can only be the doings of SUPERNATURAL POWERS.

There was a perfectly acceptable explanation for everything, but I'll get to that in a minute. As the story went, this horrible THING was in fact the ghost of a boy who, depending on which version of the story was told, died on the set, died in the house that the movie was shot in, died via shotgun blast, or died via forcibly injected foreign antibodies that refused to live up to their name. The ghoul wasn't making its presence known for revenge or anything; evidently, the boy just wanted his fifteen minutes, however postmortem.

If you watch the scene with the mindset that it could possibly maybe be a real ghost, it's dang creepy. I was all of ten or eleven years of age when the story broke, and soon after, one of the major networks gave Three Men and a Baby its first television airing. I watched the film and waited for that scene with a stomach full of pretty moths, and when I finally caught my first glimpse of the poor dead boy, it wasn't a minute later that every light in our house was on and I was wrapped firmly in whatever sufficed as a security blanket back then. I was absolutely floored. A ghost! A real, live ghost on display for the world to see!

All of my friends were similarly impressed, and in a world full of so many debatably great things, I think this marked the only time that everyone seemed to agree that something was awesome. After watching so many "real" ghost stories on television where the only visual evidence consisted of pictures of orbs or sketches by the same guys who did concept art for Spaced Invaders, finally, we had our smoking gun.

Only, we didn't. In truth, the ghost was merely a life-sized cardboard standee of Ted Danson — a leftover prop from one of the commercials his character starred in. Cut scenes from the film revealed that the standee was actually a running gag, so the fact that it was in plain sight during a scene that actually made it into the movie is sloppy, but hardly suspect. I found this news appalling, not because I didn't believe it, but because it meant that I no longer had a valid reason to watch Three Men and a Baby anymore. I came for the ghost, but secretly, I delighted in the acerbity and heartfelt moments. I understand that acerbity isn't a truly fitting description, but I just found out that it's an actual word and I just had to use it right here and now. "Acerbity." Sounds like a newly discovered planet, or one of the many animal pilots in Starfox's death squad.

I don't think I've ever come closer to really believing in ghosts as I did when I thought a cardboard Ten Danson was one of them. The universe seemed bigger, then.