Martin Sheen doesn't enter until 36 minutes and 15 seconds into the pilot of The West Wing, but when he does, the first line he speaks in the show is the First Commandment. Similarly impressive is when, a moment after this frame, he tells the religious right to "Get [their] fat asses out of [his] White House".
I launched a new show this week on 5by5. It features interviews with comic creators. I'm crazy for the theme music.
The first episode includes chats with these people:
Stan Lee
Co-creator of some among the most popular characters in comic book history, mostly-official Ambassador of the form, day player in Marvel movies
Humberto Ramos
Spider-fan and the penciler on the current and outstanding run of Amazing Spider-Man, whose work is truly Amazing
Hope Larson
Writer/artist who uses a manga-inspired B/W plus spot-color style, just released her excellent graphic novel adaptation of A Wrinkle In Time
Brian Posehn & Gerry Duggan
The team writing the new Marvel NOW! Run of Deadpool, which finds the merc with a mouth mowing down evil undead US Presidents
Topics include things they like to read, Star Wars, the piracy "thing", and many others!
Twitchfilm has just posted the trailer for Wong Kar Wai's 5 years in the making Ip Man movie, The Grandmasters. Starring Tony Leung (In the Mood for Love) and Zhang Ziyi, and featuring Yuen Woo Ping fight choreography, it tells the story of wing chun kung fu pioneer Ip Man. There have been two separate Ip Man movie franchises launched in recent years, but this could be the greatest one of them all.
The movie hits China on 18 December.
After watching the trailer four times, I've embedded it here:
"I spoke this afternoon to Conan Doyle, he thinks something ought to be done about it, too."
...
"And who’s Conan Doyle?"
"The author chap sir, writes the Sherlock Holmes stories in The Strand Magazine."
"This Doyle fellow writes the Sherlock Holmes stories?"
"Yes sir, Conan Doyle. You must have seen his name."
"Never heard of him, but I’ve read every Sherlock Holmes story since they started in July ’91."
"Are you reading The Hound of the Baskervilles, sir?"
"Am I not! What’d you think of the end of the last installment?"
From the outstandingly lovely new Region B locked UK Blu-ray, released over there last week. This is one of the Technicolor films that was in greatest need of rescue and restoration. Marvelous work. Review tomorrow.
This could theoretically open the door to the original, un-altered versions of the Original Star Wars Trilogy becoming available legally and in HD. Then again, it could result in them being just as buried as original cuts of Disney titles.
Seven (Make that eight and counting) things after listening to their conference call announcement just now:
1) Disney now owns all LucasFilm IP: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Skywalker Sound, LucasArts (games), Lucas Books/Animation/Licensing/Marketing/Online, and ILM (the company that once owned Pixar), as well as the trademark for "Droid". Disney will now own all intellectual property rights with some distribution and licensing "entaglements" based on existing deals, much like how Universal still has the Marvel theme park license for a while yet and Sony makes Spider-Man movies.
2) Much was made of Disney's global licensed product and distribution reach making better use of LucasFilm licenses, with all emphasis on the $4.05 billion paid being relative to the value of the Star Wars franchise. For example, this would imply that any Star Wars (and Indiana Jones?) licensed comic books will now go under Marvel once the current Star Wars/Dark Horse contract ends, and video games would go through Disney Interactive.
UPDATE 1:: Bob Iger: "We're likely to focus more on social and mobile than we are on console. We'll look opportunistically at console, most likely in licensing rather than publishing, but we think that given the nature of these characters and how well known they are, and the storytelling, that they lend themselves quite nicely, as they've already demonstrated to the other platforms" ...so maybe Star Wars comics are safe at Dark Horse? ...I want to say no way in hell, when you own one of the two megalithic comic publishers...
UPDATE 3:: The Star Wars 1313 game is staying on track, per a LucasArts statement.
3) Disney plans to release a new Star Wars movie every 2-3 years starting in 2015. All of them will be in 3D.
4) Star Wars Episodes 7, 8, and 9 will be a trilogy. The treatment is done, is in "early stage development", and the movies are to be released every other year.
5) ILM will remain a studio-agnostic gun for hire. Disney does not want to change anything about how they operate.
6) Fox retains ownership and distribution of all existing Star Wars movies (until that contract expires... UPDATE 4:: Episode 4 is owned "in perpituity" and all other existing movies are owned through 2020). Disney can use any and all characters from the entire Star Wars canon in all of its new movies. All future films will be distributed by Disney, unlike Paramount retaining partial distribution rights when Marvel was acquired. No mention was made of who now owns the Star Wars Holiday Special.
7) They made it extremely clear that the Indiana Jones (and other non-SW) IP was not factored into their valuation of LucasFilm, only Star Wars and Star Wars-related IP. They made an oblique reference to "entanglements" (i.e., Paramount's distribution and ownership of the existing movies and, I expect Young Indy, if they remember it exists).
8) This may be reaching, but they made repeated reference to the broader reach of the Disney content family in general, and toward the end someone asked about the Disney Faeries and other "girl-oriented" IP expansions and how they'd handle that. Disney sidestepped addressing it in terms of specific plans, but acknowledged that they have many plans in this area for sure.
UPDATE 2:: Bob Iger: "We love the fact that this will take its place in our live-action strategy as a known and loved brand. We really like Star Wars’ potential on TV, and Disney XD would be a great home for that."
This means that the long-rumored live-action Star Wars TV series is just the tip of the iceberg. No word on how Clone Wars (distributed by Warner Bros on home video) falls into any of this.
9) I just realized this means that Disney now fully owns Captain EO and Star Tours. This deal has been in the works for a long while, I guarantee you. Think about it.
All in all, and call it controversial, but I firmly believe this is the best possible thing to happen to Star Wars in a long, long time.
I'm re-listening to my recording of the call and will update as necessary with corrections and additions.
Drafthouse Films has quietly announced what I consider their biggest acquisition yet: Pietà, the newest film from South Korea's Kim Ki-duk, who has previously done 3-Iron and the wonderful Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring. It's South Korea's official Academy Award selection this year, and is apparently really outstanding. I don't doubt it.
I dearly love Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love (and Chungking Express, and Days of Being Wild, and...). Not only does the new Blu-ray edition feature HD audio and video, but it also adds a half hour of brand-new interview content featuring the great Tony Rayns, one of the foremost Asian cinema scholars in the West. Review soon.
This grab taken in the middle of a fade to black.
David Fincher's The Game (1997) holds up beautifully, even though so many seem to consider Fight Club and Seven as his best (or best-remembered) movies. Criterion's recent Blu-ray and DVD editions bring an end to many collectors' long cries for a port of the excellent 1998 laserdisc.
For $300, you can soon own a 3M projector that shoots out a "120 inch image" and is powered by Roku's channel-diverse ecosystem.
The immediate problem I found upon digging up the device's tech specs? The 10-foot diagonal image that this 1.3 pound projector cranks out tops out at 480p. That's DVD-quality at very best. For comparison's sake, 800x480 is lower resolution than the 3.5-inch screen of an iPhone 4. This is not a replacement for anyone's flat-panel TV.
The problems don't end there with this thing, the most unimpressive "big play" since the vaporware, bowling ball-shaped Google Nexus Q. I guess that's why they buried the announcement on a Friday.
After Seven (I refuse to refer to it as Se7en...wait...shit) and before Fight Club, David Fincher made what I consider the most Fincherian of his features. In a one-two punch, he also captures the culmination of a decade worth of classic Michael Douglas performances.
Go into the movie knowing absolutely nothing. Stay away from Wikipedia or IMDb. Don't read anything. Don't even watch the trailer. You will be very glad you did.
Before you worry I'm spoiling anything with this image, know that it's the cover to Criterion's new special edition Blu-grade, which thankfully carries over all of the supplements from the laserdisc (one of the last they did) at long, long last. Full review later today.
Fantastic Fest has been very absorbing and diverting over the last week. Some interesting things are coming to this space, plus some disc reporting catch-up, plus some new regularity that is just going to happen without further explanation. You loyal readers will have a lot more to read very soon.
As for the below...there's a very brief, slapstick gag-filled Tangled short on the Cinderella Blu-ray. This is, I'm assuming, a tease for the full-fledged Tangled direct-to-video sequel, which Disney had previously announced.
It's my sad duty to report that one of my favorite films by Wong Kar-Wai is now OOP in its Criterion Collection edition (per big black capitol letters on their website).
The commentary track from Tony Rayns, a major Wong authority, is quite good, as are the few other extras, which I would not bet on finding in any new edition from Miramax/Lionsgate that may be forthcoming.
Grab it while you can, and try not to spend more than $30 for the Blu-ray. Paying any more than that is highway robbery, like the "in-stock" listing from "Overstock Deals" priced at over $40. Most Best Buy and Fry's stores that stock these titles should have it for the time being.
This 2006 documentary is about the general topic of debt: national, personal, and everything in between. Louis CK, Dave Ramsey, and Elizabeth Warren (among others) appear. When I saw it at SXSW, I assumed it would never get picked up because it went directly after the banks that would succeed in crashing the economy only two years later.
Netflix Watch Instantly available as of this writing
$3 rental on iTunes
MTV Geek reports that in advance of the recently-announced TV deal for The Strain, co-created by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, it's coming to Geek & Sundry in another form as of tomorrow. I've been a big fan of what they've done with their premium YouTube channel thus far, and this looks to continue that trend nicely.
Yes, it looks that good.
It's going to get pretty busy around here with Fantastic Fest starting tomorrow. I may very well be posting multiple Screen Time mini-episodes throughout the next week, depending on how often and quickly I get interviews done with various people.
Stay tuned.
These all look so damned clean and crisp, without losing any of the fine detail due to overscrubbing.
Out today: three magnificent restorations of some of my favorite Spielberg movies, plus Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which I half-watched on cable once. Raiders is honestly part of the reason I ended up studying Anthropology in college.
This doesn't come to the US until November, but I have my hands on the UK import. The massive amount of restoration cost and work was well worth it. It looks outstanding. Review coming before the weekend.
On the heels of Criterion's announcement come Kino's December titles.
The best and smartest thing they've done is collect their entire line of Buster Keaton Blu-rays into a box set hitting on 11 December. This provides a perfect way to save in bulk while investing in some of the most substantive silent film editions available. Every existing Keaton Blu-ray is included, adding only College from 1927, which will remain exclusive to the box until next year.
The other major standout is Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel (starring Marlene Dietrich) on 4 December. This is the first time it's been available on home video.
Those two giants join remastered editions of two Mario Bava movies (Baron Blood and Kidnapped), along with various others. Hit the link above for the full rundown on...Facebook (blech).