Electric Shadow

THE GRANDMASTER Trailer

The Hong Kong cut of Wong Kar-wai's newest movie runs 130 minutes. The original title is The Grandmasters. This "international" version is 115 minutes and only drops the "s" at the end of the title.

I have an import Blu-ray on its way so that I can watch the intended edit first.

This feels like the good old days, when Harvey Weinstein was re-editing and re-titling Asian martial arts movies for no real good reason, not to mention putting extremely didactic english voiceover on top of the trailer. This newest telling of the Ip Man story starring Tony Leung hits US cinemas on 23 August.

Ang Lee's FLYING TIGERS Moves Ahead

Deadline's Dominic Patten reports that additional funding has been secured for Ang Lee's version of the story of WWII's Flying Tigers, a squadron of volunter US pilots who helped China fight back against the Japan before the US joined the war.

Tom Cruise had been trying to get a version of this story off the ground, but it appears that Lee's camp, a China-US co-production monster, has definitively beaten him out. The project is being shot in English for use as both a six-hour TV miniseries and a two-part feature length movie.

I'm still unclear on which version will be shown in the US based on all the reporting I've seen, but it seems the two-part movie event is China-only. HBO-bound, then?

THOR: THE DARK WORLD Trailer

They have done a great job nailing this character on-screen. This looks to go heavier on the epic scale than in the first standalone movie, which is a very, very good thing. I like seeing them folding in more elements of the core Thor mythos, like the unhappy teaming of Thor and Loki, as well as more of a focus on the Nine Realms that include Asgard.

Aereo Starts Service in Boston on 15 May

Deadline has done a very good job following this whole Aereo "thing" from beginning to now. Here's a quick recap of what this is and why it is controversial:

The Barry Diller-backed service will stream local broadcast channels for free without the permission of those stations. At NAB, over-the-air broadcasters Fox, CBS, and Univision made the hilariously stupid threat to take their broadcast channels to pay-TV-only, which is actually a much worse move for them than to have a service that is basically IPTV-style Slingboxing:

It will stream programming from 28 over-the-air channels in Boston without their permission. (Aereo also has an agreement with Bloomberg Television to offer its pay TV channel.) Broadcasters in New York have already taken Aereo to court, alleging that it violates their copyrights. The company counters that it simply rents antennas, enabling subscribers to watch programming that’s already available to them for free. It adds that consumers also have the right to stream their content, much like they would if they bought a Slingbox.

Focus Features Snags DALLAS BUYERS CLUB

Deadline reports that the meaty awards bait movie has one of the best distributors in the game right now:

This was a long-coveted project for actors and directors even before Matthew McConaughey came aboard in May 2011 to star alongside Hilary Swank (Jennifer Garner eventually came on to take the latter role). McConaughey said he lost almost 40 pounds to tell the real-life story of Ron Woodruff, who fought the U.S. medical and pharmaceutical companies after he was diagnosed with HIV in the mid-1980s, when the disease was still mostly without a public face.

Valiant Goes 8-Bit with Harbinger Wars

CBR has a great interview with the Valiant guys about their upcoming 8-Bit-style iOS and Android game adaptation of their first big crossover event since re-launching their line, Harbinger Wars:

CBR News: A retro, 8-bit mobile game isn't unheard of, but it's certainly unusual when it comes to comic book-based video games in this era. How exactly did this project begin and where did the idea to deal exclusively in 8-bit come from?

Dinesh Shamdasani: We announced a series of 8-bit covers for our June books, and they got a tremendous response. What happened is we were all sitting around -- we do brainstorming meetings, and we were coming up with creative ideas, marketing ideas, sales ideas -- and Warren Simons had recently seen "Wreck-It Ralph." We were all talking about the proliferation of 8-bit style and how genius that movie was and how much fun it is. He pitched doing Valiant characters in 8-bit. Atom Freeman, our sales manager, knew Matthew White, who did the covers for us. He hooked us up with Matthew, who did a test piece that actually ended up being the "Planet Death" "X-O Manowar" cover. That hasn't changed from the test piece he did with no direction. It was fun, it was cool, we really liked it and we started talking about how we wanted to play that game. I had a chat with Russ and said, "Man, it would be so cool [to play that game]." Russ said he knew the perfect person for that. Russ and Steve Newton knew each other from doing Marvel with DSI. We sat down with the Storm City guys and everybody was on the same page and the 8-bit covers were announced. … We were totally gung-ho about doing the game and that's how we hooked up with Steve Newton and Storm City, and Steve brought in Dan Kitchen, who's been tremendous.

I interviewed Valiant CEO (then CCO) Dinesh Shamdasani on Giant Size back in the show's earliest days.

Awful Wii U Commercials

I have a Wii U. I like it. I skipped the Wii, so I have a lot to catch up on. Sales figures have been in the toilet for it. These new commercials on Nintendo's YouTube channel are so unfocused and bland, I just don't know what they're thinking.

The quickest solution to all of this is releasing three big games this summer and then keep actual games coming out instead of ports of year-plus-old games.

UPDATE: John Gholson sums up exactly how I missed this one. It's actually a commercial for a church, right?

Konami Announces METAL GEAR SOLID Collection Worth Buying

Kotaku reports that the PS3/HD-enhanced collection I've been waiting for since they started doing these is finally in the offing. It will include:

METAL GEAR SOLID
METAL GEAR SOLID 2: HD Edition
METAL GEAR SOLID 3: HD Edition (which includes the original MSX versions of METAL GEAR and METAL GEAR 2)
METAL GEAR SOLID: Peace Walker HD Edition
METAL GEAR SOLID: VR MISSIONS
METAL GEAR SOLID 4: Trophy Edition.

In addition, the collection will also include two Ashley Wood digital graphic novels

The previous one included 2, 3, and Peace Walker. I played part of 3 and have been dormant on the series since. I'm the target customer looking to catch up on almost ten years of games in a couple of weekends. I'll probably re-play the super-ridiculous Sons of Liberty. Their recasting Snake by ditching David Hayter for the next game makes me less interested in it.

Explosion Near Waco

A fertilizer plant in West, Texas exploded around an hour ago. It's a small town just off Interstate 35 about 20-30 minutes north of Waco. I drive through there every time I visit my parents in Dallas. The photo in this article from Dallas' WFAA Channel 8 shows a tiny corner of The Czech Stop, well-known to central and north Texans.

Czech Stop is a bakery and gas station where I stop every time I go back home. They're known for their kolaches, a Czech import to texas where meats and chesses and various other fillings are baked inside a yeast roll.

NBC News has another, closer angle.

This is literally a close-to-home thing for me. I've interacted with the people of that town, driven past countless times, and I believe in preserving small town Texas culture. Contrary to mis-reporting all over social media (my trigger finger included), the majority of the city was not "leveled" (see update), but the shockwave was felt as far north as Arlington, which is about an hour away. The destruction as reported so far, however, is pretty significant for a town as small as West.

I fear that in the coming weeks, a lot of I-35 travelers will stop in at Czech Stop (like I do), and either not know or remember that this happened. I hope, however, that people stop, think, and ask these people how they're holding up, and tell them that people are thinking of them. That's what I plan to do. As a society, we don't do things like that as much as we used to.

I've been off gluten for a long while, but in addition to a coffee, I plan to grab a couple of sausage, cheese and sauerkraut kolaches the next time I'm through.

SHANE Blu-ray Will be 1.37, 1.66 Version Dead

Lou Lumenick gets the scoop that the outcry from fans has resulted in Warner Home Video scrapping a 1.66:1 aspect ratio bastardization of Paramount's Shane in favor of the correct original aspect ratio of 1.37:1.

"Shane'' was shot in the then-prevailing classic, squarish "Academy'' ratio by director George Stevens and cinematographer Loyal Griggs in 1951. But by the time it was ready for release in early 1953, Hollywood was gearing up for widescreen presentations to compete with TV. "Shane'' thus became the first Hollywood film of this era -- there had been experiments with 70mm for early talkies -- to be released in 1:66, shown that way at Radio City Music Hall and for other premiere engagements. But for most of the past 60 years, "Shane'' has been exhibite[d] -- theatrically, on TV and on home video -- the way Stevens shot it, in 1:37.

The film was shown in 1:66 in 1953 when the projectionist masked off a portion of the tops and/or bottoms of the picture. For the film's recent restoration, Paramount reportedly decided to create video masters of both versions. The cropping of 1:66 version, TCM says, was personally supervised by George Stevens Jr. -- the director's son, a filmmaker himself who was on location when the film was shot -- and he decided the framing on a shot by shot basis.

He goes on to mention the full-blooded crusade of my friend Jeffrey Wells to get the 1.66 version axed:

Wells' crusade was supported by Woody Allen , whose office faxed a letter indicating that he "wanted to add my strenuous objection to putting out an edition of Shane in any format other than the precise original.'

Like Lumenick and many, many others, I do not support Wells' insistence on 1.78:1 movies being cropped to 1.66:1 (which seems to conflict with his holy war on Modified Aspect Ratios), and especially Wells' ardor in favor of massive levels of DNR. I am, however, happy to have been there with him on this one. George Stevens Jr., who authorized the 1.66-ization, has since cancelled his appearance to present the movie at the upcoming TCM Festival. Shocker.

"X" Century-Fox

Deadline retracts/corrects a story they helped blow up earlier today. 20th Century Fox is still going to be 20th Century Fox in all consumer-facing ways. "21st Century Fox" is just a name for the new umbrella corporation that envelops all of News Corp's being-spun-off media properties.

This, the latest choice from the company that decided to launch a new cable channel called FXX when they already have one called FX. No one will get confused, I'm sure.

The title of this post references the 1953 merger of 20th Century Pictures and the Fox Film Corporation, where the new company's name featured a hyphen for some years as "20th Century-Fox".

Finished Steel

What Zack Snyder has done with Superman feels markedly different than what Bryan Singer did within the self-created trap of his own choosing. Snyder's Man of Steel feels unchained from what is expected or what has come before, either from the Superman franchise or his own filmography.

A major difference I've felt is in overheard conversations: sometimes in movie theaters, sometimes (more rarely) when just out and about. I very distinctly recall the first weekend that Superman Returns trailers were playing in cinemas across the country. I was in a half-full screening of something or another. The audience collectively groaned, and then a woman behind me said in full voice "are they kidding us with this shit?". The below is how you sell even the most jaded audience on a new Superman.

Sick

I returned from a conference in Miami and succumbed to some unholy combination of bronchitis and a sinus infection. I had been on heavy steroidal meds from my recent sinus surgery, which reduced my capacity to fight infection. Add to that the exhaustion from the rigors of a conference schedule (in Miami no less).

Mostly, I only feel well enough to lay around, watch TV, and try to resist coughing. I'm trying to get some posts out tonight and throughout the rest of the week.