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Jan. 11th, 2006 12:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cleolindaPrince Caspian is Moving Ahead.
WB Opens Casting Call for Luna Lovegood.
Sam Raimi to Direct Terry Pratchett's The Wee Free Men.
Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers know Where the Wild Things Are.
Intelligent Design and the Great Octopus. ("So, the Bush Dynasty is being controlled by Cthulhu in order to destroy humanity?" "It explains a lot about Cheney -- he always did have that kind of fishy, Innsmouth look to him.")
The Internet Annoyance Law is less grim than we were initially told.
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alchemy_gryph: The caveat: neither of these two statutes applies to speech that is protected by the First Amendment. No one has ever won a case citing 47 U.S.C. 223 trying to prosecute someone who was simply annoying. The Supreme Court recently re-affirmed the statute's limits in this respect in 1999 by unanimously striking down an attorney's lawsuit against someone who was telephoning him on a daily basis to tell him that he was an asshole (I'm not kidding).
"Annoy" was a poor choice of words on Specter's part, but the statute is not a threat to free speech. You are still allowed to tell people online that their fanfic sucks and their grammar sucks and your eyes are bleeding from their sheer inability to write and that you've exhausted your supply of Pepto Bismol and holy shit please for the love of God find another hobby. You are just not allowed to tell them from an anonymous account that you are coming over to their house with a .38 Special because their fanfic sucks.
The American Constitution protects the Rights of Man. It does not guard against the Hurt Feelings of Man.
More on that from
lederhosen. Fla. Bank Standoff Ends; Hostage Rescued.
Woman Who Died in '03 Left in Front of TV.
S.F. Police Investigating Starbucks Bomb.
Contaminated Diamond Brand pet food is killing dogs. It runs under a few different names, so check and make sure you're not buying it. It hasn't been purposely contaminated--it's a fungal issue, IIRC.
Border Agents Discover U.S.-Mexico Tunnel.
The NYT picks up the "Million Little Pieces" scandal. Meanwhile, a May 2003 book review called Frey out even then ("A Million Pieces of Shit"). And then Neal Pollack weighs in on the Frey/Leroy scandals. Excerpt: "It's been a hard life because the cops won't start--I mean stop--beating me up. The other day, I spilled coffee on the passenger seat of my 2006 BMW Convertible. That pissed me off so much that I stopped off at the closest Catholic church and hired a bunch of bums to gang-rape a nun. That's how much of a bad-ass I am. Meanwhile, the rumors that I've been hiring an actress to play me in public are only part true. I did hire one, but I killed her after I made her give me a blowjob under the table at the Paramount backlot commissary. If you're wondering where all the records of my various crimes have gone, well, they were destroyed in a fire a few years ago, a fire that spread across neighborhood police stations in every state. You didn't hear about that fire because of another fire that night, this one afflicting newsrooms."
Jadis!Pony. SO AWESOME. (Yes, I did own 45,000 My Little Ponies as a child, some of which I paid for with $5 in ziploc-baggied pennies. WHAT OF IT?)
eBaumsworld vs. YTMND, part 2: Cease and desist, LOL.
Lohan Says She's 'Appalled' by Vanity Fair
Johansson doesn’t believe in monogamy.
Rachel Weisz and Darren Aronofsky are having a baby.
Trailers for Clerks 2 and Alatriste (aka "The Viggo Mortensen Swashbuckling Pornstache Movie").
Colin Farrell sex tape images (NSFW).
Hee. Go to the IMDB and scroll down a bit on the front page: "It seems that Harry Potter fan sites are sending quite a few of their visitors to vote in our annual 'Best of' and 'Worst of' polls, placing noted thespian Rupert Grint in 2nd place for Best Supporting Actor, with Jake Gyllenhaal just ahead of him (hey, we like Ron W. too, but come on!). Ah well, that's what you get when you invite thousands and thousands of people to vote in your Best and Worst Polls, sometimes the best really are the best and sometimes, well... Make sure your voice is heard in our "Best Work" poll and our Best Films of 2005 poll."
OH PLEASE. I loved Goblet of Fire, but it was not the best anything this year. Except maybe "Most Heartbreaking Jailbait Performance (Male)" or possibly "Best Villain Sans Nose." "Best Movie About Wizards," definitely. "Best Imaginary Band" all the way. But as far as satisfying adaptations go, Narnia was much better--in part because it was working with a short book that it got to expand, rather than a book so long that they couldn't even cram all the plot points in at the end. The acting was better and more consistent, even going by other people's comments--how many of y'all complained that Dumbledore seemed totally off this time? Not to mention the fact that David Tennant spent all of his screentime gnawing on the scenery, and that Mad-Eye didn't even get to say "Constant vigilance" once. Meanwhile, Narnia turned in a pitch-perfect Tumnus, Aslan managed to not ruin anyone's childhoods, Tilda Swinton pwned, etc. And there was way too much dragon in Goblet of Fire, I think, following in the recent tradition of "Most Action" rather than "Best Action," but it can't even win "Most Action" because Peter Jackson's got his stampedalanche of dinosaurs to the dinosaurth power. I love GOF and find it to be a perfectly satisfying movie, plot holes aside, but that doesn't mean it was the best of anything. I also loved Sin City, and I didn't vote for anything from that movie as the best, either. Except maybe cinematography, and that wasn't an option.
(Oh, and all the sad Star Wars fans who voted for Palpatine as Supporting Actor? We're just laughing at you.)
BloodRayne "mistake" costs $27 million. Due to a "computer error," 5,500 extra prints of BloodRayne were made and sent out to theaters. It costs roughly $5000 to print a reel, thus costing production $27 million. Here's the thing:
The situation is exacerbated by the fact that, according to Variety, the film is only showing on 985 screens, just over half of the original target of 1,900--and that's separate from the thousands of accidental extra copies. Now, the film is already millions in the hole and it earned only $1.2 million during its opening weekend, failing to place it in the top ten. Uwe Boll has had a lot of second chances, but might this spell the beginning of the end for the self-described misunderstood director?One theory is that Boll spammed theaters with reels hoping they'd show it, but $27 million worth? No. (I mean, yes, I can see them doing that up to a certain point. But I don't think it's the reason for the "accident.") Don't you think someone would have noticed twenty-seven million dollars' worth of reels being made? Particularly for a movie that wasn't even supposed to have 2000 reels in the first place? Considering that behemoth King Kong (KING KONG!) is only playing in about 3600 theaters?
A version of the Uwe Boll Wikipedia article I read was removed as being "inflammatory and unverifiable," but it did say that the film industry nickname for his company is "Bialystock and Boll," so I personally would not be surprised to find out that this was a Springtime for Hitler gambit--yes, the tax loop he was using has been closed, but my understanding is that BloodRayne would have been grandfathered in due to its production dates. It's been closed now, though--maybe this was one last stab at throwing away giant amounts of money in order to turn around and make a profit?
