Silent Bob

I know! He'd been trying to get the rights for years. He almost had 'em and was going to do it either as live action or as a cg project with Pixar(!) before Miller snatched it out from under him. I'd kill for a Brad Bird Spirit film.

It does have many noir elements - the cinematography, the cynical protagonist, the cast of colorful lowlifes, the snappy dialogue (though that particular trait was true of many films at the time, from noir to screwball comedies). But the most common element of a film noir is that the story focuses on crime, whether from the point of view of an investigator or from the criminals themselves. I can't think of a single noir film, or even a film that is arguably considered noir by some (aside from Casablanca) that doesn't focus on a crime that has been or is being committed.

Yeah, that's why it's silly. On a side note, I've never understood why some people consider Casablanca to be a film noir. It shares a few elements, sure, but it's hardly noir.

No, The Spirit is a crime/noir comic. But it's good, character-driven, often humorous noir, not crap, guns and tits, over the top self indulgent noir. They may fall into the same genre, but The Spirit and Sin City are about as far away on the noir spectrum as you can get (and yes, I'm aware of the silliness of the phrase "noir spectrum"). A true Spirit movie would be similar to what Warren Beatty was trying to accomplish with his Dick Tracy film. Speaking of The Spirit, check out these pics before the studio yanks 'em. Some things to note: originally the Spirit's suit was blue, but of course Miller decided to make it black. Most times I don't care much when details from comics are changed for the screen, but the blue suit is the Spirit trademark, so changing it to black is like changing Spider-man's costume to yellow and purple. Also, Samuel L. Jackson is playing The Octopus. In the books, you never get to see the Octopus's face. In the movie, apparently not only do you get to see plenty of him, but he's the most flamboyantly over-the-top villain since Jim Carrey wore Riddler tights. If you ask me, the only actor who looks like he belongs in this story is Dan Lauria. Granted, he looks absolutely nothing like his character Commissioner Dolan (they couldn't have even tried to put a mustache on him?) but at least he looks like he's in a Spirit movie. I stand by my previous statement. Fuck Frank Miller.

The official teaser poster for The Spirit: Ugh. It's true. He's Millerfied it. Gag. Fuckin' Frank Miller.

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)

Jimmy Carr

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.

Yeah you really couldn't ask for a more perfect costume design.