Silent Bob

Fuckers. I thought King Kong was great. Yes, Jackson is producing, so yes it's still kind of his project, but del Toro will be calling the shots on set while Jackson will be off working on Tintin. It will be del Toro's Hobbit as much as Jackson's.

I think that's being a little unfair to Pete Jackson. If you rewatch the films you'll see that actually very little of it is battles and cg effects. Sure, there are mountains of effects to enhance the scenes, but Jackson never let the battles or effects become more important than the characters and he was never afraid to stop and show the beauty of a scene (hell, 80% of Fellowship was stopping to show the beauty of scenes). I think Jackson filmed the story as well as it could possibly be filmed. I love Guillermo del Toro and I think he'll do a fantastic job, but he's definitely not there to fix anything because nothing in that series is broken. But I understand your concerns about Holm. I think his performance was fantastic, but you're right, it wasn't convincing that he was a middle-aged hobbit in the flashback. Even if that could be overlooked (the films never really explain at what rate hobbits age, anyway...considering he looks like a raisin at 114, he could very well have looked like that at 50) and they could make him look the same as he did at the start of Fellowship, the Hobbit films would be far more physically demanding for him than the Rings films were and considering Holm turns 77 this year, he might not be up to the challenge. I'd love it if they found a way - I hate continuity changes in film series like that - but to be practical there's a good chance they'll have to recast.

Have you seen Pan's Labyrinth?

Not really, in Shakespeare's time "comedy" and "tragedy" were really only determined by the ending. Romeo & Juliet is a tragedy no matter how you try to look at it. But anyway, the Hobbit. Pete Jackson and his wife Fran Walsh are producing the film and, as far as I know, writing the screenplay with their partner Philippa Boyens. As of right now, Guillermo del Toro is slated to direct barring any major unforeseen delays or scheduling problems. Word is that Jackson will be pretty involved, but he can't direct because after he finishes Lovely Bones, he's moving on to the Tintin project with Spielberg. Also, most sources are saying that The Hobbit itself won't be split in half. The first film will cover the material from the book, while the second will bridge the gap between Hobbit and Rings.

Last I heard, the Tron sequel is gonna be in 3D.

The Starship Troopers franchise had dignity? When was that? Alright, after actually watching the trailer, I have to admit that there really is some strange unexplained comfort that comes from seeing Casper Van Dien in that uniform again. I don't understand it.

Just when I thought it was forever banished to overpriced online sellers and hard-to-find ebay auctions, the MST3K movie is being rereleased on dvd on May 6!

I think these are probably their younger versions, and that they'll be playing much of the film aged up with makeup. At least, I assume that's why they got all these young actors to play past-their-prime superheroes.

Wanna see something freakin' cool? First official cast photos from Watchmen! The Comedian Nite Owl Ozymandias Rorschach The Silk Spectre

Sure, except it doesn't advance the story, and it's arguable how relevant it is.

And to me, the Black Freighter's style seemed to be inspired by all those old classic literature adventure comics I used to read as a kid, so I'm not sure what your point is there. So, anime isn't what I pictured either, but eh, it'll probably be cool. I'm glad it'll only be a dvd feature, it'd be hard to slip that into a feature-length film.

Hah, I remember him! Much as I hate the redneck thing, I have to admit the Larry persona works better for him. One of my personal favs - Steven Lynch: Vanilla Ice Cream Beelz A very bleeped out Craig And my personal favorite Little Tiny Mustache (by the way, the censored word at 1:28 is "shower"...apparently Comedy Central found the punchline to that joke a little too offensive...like the rest of the song isn't)

I normally don't really like Jim Carrey, but while we're on funny impressions, he used to do one of the best Jimmy Stewart impressions I've ever seen.

God no, it's the only real luxury I spend money on and a whole lot of the collection comes from the fact that I have a very large family who are all willing to spend 10-20 bucks on Christmas and Birthday and all I ever ask for is a list of dvds. Just for the helluvit, I did some math. If I watched one film (and only one version of each film, some I have more than one version of) or one disc of a tv show every night, it would take me more than 2 and a half years to get through it all.

That's up to "B"

That is a nice list (I want Trigger Happy TV on dvd) I'd post mine but it's gone from "hey, cool, you have a lot of movies" to "oh my god, what is wrong with you?"

Ok, you're right about that one. I usually just go for a snack while the master goes through his speech

Mixed reviews? Maldron there is the first person I've seen to have much bad to say about it. I guess I can understand the "repetitive" complaint, but I've had the game for a couple months now and I still haven't gotten sick of just jumping from building to building so I don't mind the repetition. The only complaint I have is the anticlimactic ending, but they can make for that in the sequel. Also, Altair's voice actor who, sadly, was the only lousy actor in the entire game. Seriously, the street beggars put in a better performance than he did.

Warner Bros, huh. What happened to 20th Century Fox? It's gonna be weird seeing a Star Wars project without that opening music in front of it.

I dunno, man, watch Gangs of New York and tell me if you really believe that. I think it might be interesting to write in actual historic assassinations. Set a game in 1860s America and have the main character be the one who killed Lincoln. Or how about Europe of 1914. What if your character was the one who assassinated Archduke Ferdinand to start WWI? Sure it would rewrite history, but so did the first game. We've got bucket loads of World War II games, but can you think of any games set during World War I? I'm sure they'll figure it out, I just hope they don't stay with what's comfortable. The setting of the game was so refreshing, I want to be just as refreshed with the sequels. It takes more than great gameplay to keep a franchise alive. I loved their version of Prince of Persia, but by the third game I was getting a little bored with both the Prince and Persia. Hope they don't make that mistake twice.

I'm just interested to see if they take a sequel into a different timeline. I loved the detailed, living world that the game is set in, but when it comes down to it, I've seen games set in medieval times (albeit, not ones that looked as good as Assassin's Creed). How cool would it be if they did a sequel in a place and time that you don't normally see in a videogame? Like, I don't know, colonial London or New York City in the 1860s. They've opened up the possibility of exploring the lives of any of Desmond's ancestors, so as cool as the Crusades-era Holy Land was, I hope they don't go back there for Assassin's Creed 2. If I had my way, AC2 would focus on another ancestor in an interesting timeline between the Crusades and the near-future of Desmond's story, and then AC3 would focus almost entirely on Lucy's character. I really want to see where that character goes. And besides, I enthusiastically support the career of Kristen Bell. Oh man, the game is filled with all kinds of cool stuff like that. Throw a body off of a roof and watch the crowd below scream and gather around to investigate. Perform kills with your sword that would make Maximus proud. Personally, I think it's a lot of fun (and kind of relaxing) to forget about the targets sometimes and just free run from one side of the city to the other.

And you said it didn't interest you. Come on over here, Sig, I got it. I finished it yesterday. Now when's the damn sequel, that ending is just...blah.

I love me some Sly Cooper. I really hope they do another one of those games. I was also a big fan of Psi Ops, Sig. But, you're right, I didn't mean to suggest that BG&E reinvented the wheel or anything, just that the storyline and the characters were complete originals and there was nothing there that had a ready-made built-in fanbase. You could find games like it all over the place at the time of its release, but you'd be hardpressed to find one that had so much quality. By the way, I remembered yet another fan of the game - Pete Jackson. He played the game during the early stages of filming King Kong and enjoyed it so much that when it came time to do a videogame adaptation of the flick, he insisted on BG&E's development team. Granted, the King Kong game couldn't have been more different, but like Beyond Good & Evil, it took things that had been done before and ratcheted the quality up to 11. So that makes like ten fans.

It's not action oriented. It's not a first person shooter. It's not part of a known franchise or an inept tie-in with a popular movie. The lead character is a woman who isn't scantily clad and doesn't carry a gun. The graphics, while fantastically well-done, are not cutting edge and photorealistic. And the art style is cartoonish and the overly macho FPS-playing 14 year old boys that make up a lot of the industry's audience don't like being caught with cartoons. Sadly, the videogame industry is a lot like the movie industry now. The majority of people are only interested in franchises and the current trends. They'll shell out big bucks to get a marginally updated Madden game every year but they won't take a chance on an original. It's a shame. Even moreso than films, videogames have a chance to offer truly innovative and unique experiences to the audience, but like any form of entertainment, most companies - and most consumers - are perfectly content staying in the middle of the road.

Welcome, all of you, to the Beyond Good & Evil fan club. I think there are about eight of us now