Ski masks? Check.
Van? Check.
Handgun (or reasonable facsimile thereof)? Check.
90 seconds of spare time? Check.
Ok, we’re ready to steal $163 MILLION worth of art.
Facebook Events Has a Long Way to Go
So I just posted a Facebook event for my belated birthday party. I had read that FB Events had surpassed Evite in usage by a wide margin. Facebook also proclaimed in the help that people who weren’t in FB could be invited and would be allowed to respond. What could go wrong?
First, the famous walled garden reared its ugly head. Yes, you can invite non-users, but their response is limited to yes/no/maybe. That’s it. I asked people to state alcohol preferences in the comments. It turns out that only FB users can write on “The Wall” for your event. Not cool. AND they can’t even specify that they’re bringing other people.
Then I noticed that the number of people who were confirmed didn’t match the list. This is because it only displays thumbnails for FB users. You have to click on a link to show both FB and non-FB attendees. And if you’re not a FB member, you can’t see the full list!
So Facebook Events treats non-FB users like second class citizens. As a host, I am embarrassed for its behavior. I strongly suggest it be avoided altogether unless all your guests are on FB. If you’re in HS or college, maybe that’s the case. But I’m too old to be in that situation.
Even if all your friends are on FB, there is another caveat: FB Events won’t send an automatic reminder. I learned about this tonight through a friend. He was invited to a party 3 weeks in advance. A few days before the party, he got an email from another invitee asking if he was still attending. As you might imagine, he and just about everyone else completely forgot about it. If they hadn’t formed an impromptu phone/email tree, most people wouldn’t have showed up.
Now I’m in the awkward position of having to create an Evite and spam my guests with another invitation. As far as I can tell, FB Events are only good for promoters who are publicizing events that are completely open to the public. For everything else, they suck.
Depp, Farrell, and Law Save Imaginarium
Terry Gilliam may be lucky in love, but he’s rather unlucky in filmmaking. Lost in La Mancha chronicled the mishaps and catastrophes that plagued his version of Don Quixote, which eventually had to be scrapped. For his current production, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, he cast the late Heath Ledger as the lead. When Heath tragically passed, many thought the production would need to be scrapped since it was already about halfway through filming.
Gilliam has creatively found a way to save the film by relying on it’s fantastical nature. The main character passes from the “real world” to various fantasy realms through a magic mirror. Luckily for the production, all the real world scenes had been filmed. Now, when Heath’s character passes into a new realm, a different actor will play that part. The three actors taking the roles are Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law. I don’t think Gilliam could have asked for better actors, and the box office appeal will surely skyrocket because of their involvement. And we all benefit by getting to see Heath’s final performance, which will not be edited or enhanced in any way.
Cool Events at the Paley Center
So I hadn’t heard of The Paley Center for Media1 before today, and- This just in: The Museum of Television & Radio apparently changed their name to the Paley Center for Media. Nobody tells me anything…
Anyway, the Beverly Hills branch is hosting talks with some cool people, including the casts of some great shows:
Bones
Wednesday, April 9, 2008; 7:00 pm
David Boreanaz, Emily Deschanel, and “cast and creative team” appearing.
I don’t know why they don’t list the supporting cast; it has a much bigger part than it did on The X Files, which I think Bones is meant to replace. Except, of course, for The Lone Gunmen.
The Riches
Friday, April 18, 2008; 7:00 pm
Eddie Izzard, Minnie Driver, and “cast and creative team” appearing.
I haven’t seen this show, but Eddie Izzard’s stand-up is hilarious.
The Sarah Silverman Program
Monday, April 21, 2008; 7:00 pm
George Carlin
Thursday, May 8, 2008; 7:00 pm
I always wanted to see George do stand-up at Club Bene in NJ. We’d always see him in the coming attractions when we caught Adrian Belew concerts there. As I’m pretty sure Club Bene is no more, maybe this is my chance.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, Rob McElhenney, Kaitlin Olson, and Danny DeVito appearing.
Monday, June 30, 2008; 7:00 pm
This is the talk I most want to see – why the fuck is it scheduled for Monday? To get to Beverly Hills from OC by 7pm, I pretty much have to take a vacation day to avoid the traffic. Sux 2 b me.
- For some unfathomable reason, they have disabled linking to any sub-pages. Word of advice to their webmaster: read Jakob Nielsen. [↩]
Joss Whedon Borrows from William Gibson for Dollhouse
Joss Whedon is launching a new show called Dollhouse. It’s about people who have their minds wiped, and then have new personalities and skill sets imprinted on them for various activities.
This sounds strikingly similar to William Gibson‘s take on prostitution in the Sprawl Trilogy1. The character Molly Millions once worked as a prostitute, but brothels temporarily imprint a new consciousness on working girls and wipe the memories when it’s over. This very neatly allows all parties to go about guiltless, unless you wake up in the middle of a bad session like Molly does. Then things are not so good.
Ok, that’s just speculation on my part, but tons of people have borrowed from William Gibson. I mean, he coined the terms matrix and cyberspace – the man is a legend.
In Dollhouse, the people (victims?) are given a child-like personality in between gigs. That sounds a lot like Michael Bay’s The Island. Let’s hope Dollhouse is a lot more like the works of William Gibson and less like those of Michael Bay.
Either way, I’m happy it will star the lovely Eliza Dushku.
- Which comprises Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive, and is preceded by the short story collection Burning Chrome. My memory is a little fuzzy, so it may be from Buring Chrome, which includes Johnny Mnemonic. [↩]
Universal Gets Hasbro’s Leftover Crap
Paramount got the film rights to Transformers and G.I. Joe1. Clearly big wins. Universal has pounced on what’s left: Monopoly, Candyland, Clue, Ouija, Battleship, Magic: The Gathering and Stretch Armstrong. Uh, did they think this through? I can see how video games with intricate plots can work as movies. But… Candyland?
Then again, Ridley Scott is already working on the movie based on Monopoly. No, I am not kidding. I imagine it’s about 4 real estate magnates all vying to buy up the slums of Atlantic City. Keanu Reeves will be playing the shoe, his first convincing role since Ted “Theodore” Logan.
- Which comes out next year [↩]
Akira Gets The Live Action Treatment
The graphic novel Akira will be turned into two live action films. Yes, this is the same book that was turned into the anime of the same name. Akira single-handedly brought anime to mainstream America; it’s legendary. Otomo, who wrote the novel and directed the anime, will be exec producing the films, so I’m sure it’s in good hands.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
If you hadn’t already heard, they’re making a movie about Wolverine. According to Wikipedia, it’s not based on the Origin miniseries. Instead, it focuses on his more recent past. Here’s the current lineup (with some spoiler-free commentary):
Wolverine: Hugh Jackson. I’d love to follow this up with “Duh!”, but with WB mixing up casting for the Justice League movie1, you never can tell. Anyway, I like Jackman, even though he is way too tall for Wolverine, who is 5’3″ in the comic books. Glenn Danzig is the obvious choice, but he supposedly turned down the role in 2000.
Deadpool: Ryan Reynolds. I collected Deadpool for a while; he’s a real wiseass. Reynolds can handle that. I never saw his face in the comics, which would make this a voice acting gig when you factor in the stunt men. But this is backstory so who knows.
Sabretooth: Liev Shreiber. Shreiber is a great actor, but I wonder if they’re going to do anything about the size difference between him and Jackman. Sabretooth is huge and towers over Wolverine. It’s sort of a David and Goliath situation. Shreiber is 6’3″, but only 1 inch taller than Jackman. My guess is that they’ll pretend it’s normal, like Burton did with Keaton.
William Stryker: Danny Huston. Another great actor.
Gambit, a major character in the X-Men comics, will be played by a Taylor Kitsch, a relative unknown. Ironically, the relatively unknown characters John Wraith/Kestrel and Barnell/Blackwing will be played by will.i.am from The Black Eyed Peas and Dominic Monaghan (LOTR, Lost), respectively.
- Which might be delayed as long as Superman Returns was… [↩]
Kristin Kreuk Is Chun Li!
This is awesome. Kristin Kreuk will play Chun Li, the speed-kicking, high jumping uber cutie in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li.
I’ve sunk more quarters into Street Fighter II than any other game. I even have an X-Arcade stick, pretty much just for fighting games on MAME. And I think Kristin Kreuk (Lana Lang on Smallville) is one of the loveliest actresses on earth. So this is a big win for me.
I’m also happy to hear Balrog will be played by Michael Clarke Duncan, and Chris Klein will play Nash1 . Moon Bloodgood (the hottie from Journeyman), will also star, but I don’t know who she’ll be playing2. To top it all off, it will be choreographed by Dion Lam who did The Matrix.
The only bummer is that we’ll have to wait ’til 2009 for the release. In the meantime, there’s always Smallville. And a couple photos of our heroines:
Continue reading Kristin Kreuk Is Chun Li!
- I’ll be honest, I didn’t remember Nash/Charlie as I didn’t spend as much time on Street Fighter Alpha. [↩]
- Chun Li’s better-endowed sister? [↩]
Aftermath of the Writer’s Strike
So you’ve probably heard by now that the writer’s strike is over. Variety has some interesting articles on the subject:
- History and results of the strike. Long term could be better for writers, but it depends a lot on “new media” like streaming TV shows. Short term they’ll lose money, esp. writer/producers who will lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. In addition, a lot of deals were broken, studios invested more heavily in reality, etc. So it’s hard to say how much better off they are long term.
- Impact on TV. For the most part, we won’t start seeing new episodes of suspended shows like The Office until late March. They might try to extend the season into June, but a lot is up in the air. Most likely we’ll just get gypped several episodes.