THE (new) THREE STOOGES

(variety.com)
MGM and the Farrelly brothers are closing in on their cast for “The Three Stooges.”

Studio has set Sean Penn to play Larry, and negotiations are underway with Jim Carrey to play Curly, with the actor already making plans to gain 40 pounds to approximate the physical dimensions of Jerome “Curly” Howard.

The studio is zeroing in on Benicio Del Toro to play Moe.

The film is not a biopic, but rather a comedy built around the antics of the three characters that Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Howard played in the Columbia Pictures shorts.

The quest by the Peter and Bobby Farrelly to harness the project spans more than a decade and three studios. They first tried at Columbia, again at Warner Bros., and finally at MGM, where Worldwide Motion Picture Group chairman Mary Parent championed the cause and bought the WB-owned scripts and made a deal with Stooges rights holders C3.

Production will begin in early fall for a release sometime in 2010. The Farrellys, who wrote the script, are producing with their Conundrum partner Bradley Thomas, and Charlie Wessler.

C3 Entertainment principals Earl and Robert Benjamin will be executive producers.

Project will get underway after Penn completes the Asger Leth-directed Universal/Imagine Entertainment drama “Cartel.” He hasn’t done a comedy since the 1989 laffer “We’re No Angels.”

The Farrellys have long had their eyes on Del Toro to play Moe. Del Toro, who’s coming off “Che,” showed comic chops in the Guy Ritchie-directed “Snatch.”

The surprise is the emergence of Carrey to play Curly. Howard established the character as a seminal physical comedian, from the first time he appeared in the first Stooges short in 1934 until he suffered a stroke on the set in 1946.

PANDEMIC

My wife and I finally pulled out a game we have had on the shelf for a while to give it it’s first play…
That game is:

PANDEMIC

BestDangGames has put together a cool little video that can give you the basics better than I can:

I must say that I have no idea why we waited so long to play this game.
It was FANTASTIC!
There is a lot going on at any one time but it is never “too much”. The rules are easy to get your head around and the fun kicks-in quick.

I can see us bringing this one to the table a ton more and even introducing it to friends in the near future.

Max Fleischer’s Superman

Discover the amazing stranger from Planet Krypton that is “Faster than a streak of lightning!” and “Mightier than a roaring hurricane!” when Warner Home Video (WHV) and DC Comics release Max Fleischer Superman, a 2-disc collection featuring 17 action-packed vintage theatrical cartoons from the Warner Bros. vault, on April 7, 2009 for $26.99 SRP.

The Superman animated cartoons, commonly known as the “Fleischer Superman Cartoons” were a series of seventeen animated Technicolor short films, which were based upon the comic book character Superman. These groundbreaking theatrical shorts are the very first animated DC Comics Superman cartoons and the first cartoon entitled “Superman” to be nominated for an Academy Award® (Short Film – Animated). Each cartoon is brimming with action and special effects, beautifully drawn and colored, braced with fabulous background paintings and brought to life with realistic movement. These animated shorts are seen as some of the finest, and certainly the most lavishly budgeted, cartoons produced during the Golden Age of animation.

Episodes:

Disc One:
1. Superman (Mad Scientist)
2. The Mechanical Monsters
3. Billion Dollar Limited
4. Arctic Giant
5. The Bullesteers
6. The Magnetic Telescope
7. Electric Earthquake
8. Volcano

Disc Two:
1. Terror on the Midway
2. The Japoteurs
3. Showdown
4. The Eleventh Hour
5. Destruction , Inc.
6. The Mummy Strikes
7. Jungle Drums
8. Underground World
9. Secret Agent
Max Fleischer Superman will include incredible bonus features such as:

• The Man, The Myth Superman
A revealing and captivating documentary which defines the tradition of the exciting and thought provoking “Super Human” archetype of hero and why Superman resonates with fans on such a deep and personal level.

• First Flight: The Fleischer Superman Series.
This documentary features interviews with surviving members, relatives and biographers of the animation and production team, also contemporary animators such as Bruce Timm (Batman: The Animated Series), Paul Dini and Dan Riba (Superman: The Animated Series) who detail the influence these cartoons have had on their own works.

“These animated short films were the first cinematic adaptation of the classic comic book character, Superman,” said Amit Desai, WHV Vice President of Family, Animation & Sports Marketing. “Warner Home Video is absolutely thrilled to release Max Fleischer Superman for an entirely new generation of fans.”

THE GOON!!!

(early poster)

Eric Powell’s comic THE GOON was on it’s way to the big screen in CGI form with David Fincher producing!

How do I know? Well Ain’t It Cool News just threw up the first official pic from the movie and it looks awesome!

For those NOT in the know… The GOON is about the adventures of… the Goon, a muscle-bound brawler who claims to be the primary enforcer for the feared mobster Labrazio. The Goon (and his sidekick Franky) often get tied up in other machinations, often in relation to the evil zombie gangs under the command of the Nameless Zombie Priest.

Coolness Of The Day

An intricate hand-cranked machine made entirely of wood and glue (no metal or other materials). It was designed and built by Del, using many different woods and incorporating a variety of mechanical motions. He has made several other wooden machines, but calls this latest one his crowning achievement. Del is 71 years old.

After Watchmen…

(source: The Comics Reporter)

“Although you may have already been “blasted” with the news via an e-mail or social networking site announcement, today is the day that DC formally launches its “After Watchmen” initiative, whereby they recommend a bunch of books they publish to people that liked Watchmen in the hopes that they might be purchased by these people.”

The choices are:
“Books That Redefine Modern Superheroes”
“More Books By Alan Moore”
“Books That Push The Boundaries Of Science Fiction”
“Best-selling Books By Best-Selling Authors”
“Books For Mature Readers”

Sure… This ploy is just a quick way for DC Comics to capitalize on the buzz that is surrounding The Watchmen film. But you can’t really blame them for trying to sell more books, now can you?

DVD Picks ‘O The Week (3/09/09)

TWO picks this week (from two opposite ends of the spectrum)!

I have a Blu-Ray player and am on a quest to get all of the Disney and Pixar releases as they come out on the format.
This leads me to my FIRST pick of the week:

PINOCCHIO (2-Disc 70th Anniversary Platinum Edition)

Disney has put together a ton of extras on this two-disc set, many of which are presented in high def.

Featurettes include an hour-long making-of documentary that spans the history of the film and its production, a look at Walt Disney’s “sweatbox” (a room where he viewed and critiqued the dailies), a piece on wooden toymakers of today, and some fascinating footage of live action reference tests the filmmakers shot before animating the film. Someone dressed in the costume of a character from the film would act out a scene, helping animators to get a feel for what it would like in real life.

Bonus footage includes three deleted scenes, rendered through a combination of original sketches and storyboards. One shows Geppetto telling Pinocchio of his grandfather, a tall and noble pine tree. The second is an extended scene in the belly of the whale where Geppetto envisions the objects around him as food, and Figaro considers eating Cleo. The last is an alternate ending that shows Pinocchio discovering Geppetto washed up on the beach and mistaking him for dead. The Blue Fairy arrives and turns Pinocchio into a real boy there on the beach.

Alternate viewing options include a song finder that jumps to the film’s songs with lyrics on the screen, a trivia track that pops up facts on screen while the film plays, and a Disney View extended viewing experience that fills in the edges of the screen that are normally black because of the full frame presentation with complementary artwork.

A full-length commentary with film critic Leonard Maltin, Disney animator Eric Goldberg, and film historian J.B. Kaufman can be listened to normally, or viewed as a picture-in-picture experience.

Two games and the usual trailers and promos round out the extras.

In addition, a third disc containing the DVD version of the film is included.

My SECOND pick this week is a little vampire film from Sweden:

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

A 12-year-old boy befriends a mysterious young girl whose appearance in town suspiciously coincides with a horrifying series of murders in director Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of the book by author John Ajvide Lindqvist, who also wrote the screenplay. Oskar is a young boy who can’t seem to shake off the local bullies, but all of that begins to change when a new neighbor moves in next door. After striking up an innocent friendship with his eccentric next-door neighbor, Oskar realizes that she is the vampire responsible for the recent rash of deaths around town. Despite the danger, however, Oskar’s friendship with the girl ultimately takes precedence over his fear of her.

DVD Pick ‘O The Week (3/5/09)

(Source: Amazon.com)
Watched any great books lately? Now you can. The most celebrated graphic novel of all time that broke the conventional mold continues to break new ground. WATCHMEN illustrator Dave Gibbons oversees this digital version of the graphic novel that adds limited motion, voice and sound to the book’s strikingly drawn panels. All 12 chapters of the story are here, nearly 5 hours spanning everything from the mysterious demise of the Comedian to the crisscrossed destinies of loosely allied superheroes to their fateful impact on the world. Be in the know. Be watching. With…

Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic.

See The Trailer For It: HERE

Scott McCloud Talks Comics

(Source: TED.COM)
If not for Scott McCloud, graphic novels and webcomics might be enjoying a more modest Renaissance. The flourishing of cartooning in the ’90s and ’00s, particularly comic-smithing on the web, can be traced back to his major writings on the comics form. The first, Understanding Comics, is translated into 13 languages, and along with Reinventing Comics and Making Comics, its playful and profound investigations are justly revered as something like the Poetics of sequential art.

McCloud coined the term “infinite canvas” — for the new comics medium made possible by web browsers. He’s an avid user of the medium: My Obsession With Chess was widely popular online, as was The Right Number. Back on the printed page, he wrote and illustrated Zot!, a colorful response to then-trendy grimness and gore in comic books. (He describes the book as “a cross between Peter Pan, Buck Rogers and Marshall McLuhan.”)

In this unmissable look at the magic of comics, Scott McCloud bends the presentation format into a cartoon-like experience, where colorful diversions whiz through childhood fascinations and imagined futures that our eyes can hear and touch.

Check Out His Talk: HERE

Find out more about Scott McCloud: HERE