Tintin: Secret Of The Unicorn

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Movies,

I like the Tintin books by Herge. They’re good, goofy fun built on crazy characters, wild coincidences and non-stop action.

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a Tintin movie coming out: The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn. It’s due at Christmas in the US (October in the UK) and the newest trailer has just been released.

The trailer looks a lot like Raiders of Herge’s Ark but it also looks like it might be fun, too. It has that dead-eyed Uncanny Valley look to it that you'll find in other mo-cap features like Polar Express.

But I'm still willing to give it a shot in the theater because of the people behind the software.

It’s co-written by Stephen Moffat (Coupling, Doctor Who and the new Sherlock Holmes series at the BBC).

The other co-writers are Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) and Joe Cornish (who co-wrote the new Ant Man movie and directed the upcoming Attack The Block).

Tintin’s director is Steven Spielberg, who still has Geek Cred and certainly knows how to make a good adventure movie.

Click to continue reading Tintin: Secret Of The Unicorn

Read More | Tintin Trailer

Weekend Reading: App TV, Scott Pilgrim, Scooby-Doo and Brian Keene

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Interviews, Movies, Reviews, Television, Independent,

If you want to know where the future of TV and games is headed, check out this piece at Gaming Business Review by my old buddy Chris Ulm. A co-creator of Rune, co-founder of the Ultraverse (it was his idea), and now the CEO of Appy Entertainment, he thinks a lot about those kinds of things.

This’ll get you started: “The living room right now is a no-man’s land of standards and cables, universally poor and inconsistent user interfaces, huge numbers of channels, multiple boxes of hardware, hated cable companies, and multiple video game systems, each with its own proprietary hardware and expensive software.”

Scott Pilgrim: John Scalzi explains the failure of Edgar Wright’s movie in terms we can all understand: the value of nerd-love.

The Cleveland Show: Tom Spurgeon’s brother interviews voice actor Kevin Michael Richardson, the voice of Cleveland Jr. and countless other characters.

Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: App TV, Scott Pilgrim, Scooby-Doo and Brian Keene

Sneak Peek: Scott Pilgrim vs. Chris Evans

Posted by Robin Paulson Categories: Movies, Independent,

If you were someone (like myself) who had better things to do than watch the MTV Movie Awards pre-show last night, you unfortunately missed out on a first look at a fight scene from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Well, you’re in luck—catch the clip above, which director Edgar Wright introduces himself.

In the scene, Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) dukes it out with Ramona’s (Elizabeth Mary Winstead) second ex-boyfriend, skateboarder-turned-A-lister Lucas Lee (Chris Evans). Can Pilgrim defeat Lee and his stunt men? Find out when the film hits theaters August 13!

Second Scott Pilgrim Trailer Released

Posted by Robin Paulson Categories: Movies, Reviews, Independent,

Memorial Day 2010 has been good to fans of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim comic: out now is a second trailer for the film adaptation, directed by Shaun of the Dead‘s Edgar Wright and starring Michael Cera as the eponymous character.

In this trailer, viewers get a better look at Jason Schwartzman’s character, who is the seventh, final boyfriend Pilgrim must defeat to get with Ramona. I love Wright and his editing, but I’m not particularly convinced that the soft-spoken Cera portrays Pilgrim too well. He looks a little too silly in the action scenes…

On a different note, where’s Knives?!

Read More | Comic Book Resources

Jason Schwartzman Reacts to Scott Pilgrim Film

Posted by Robin Paulson Categories: Movies,

While promoting his latest film Fantastic Mr. Fox, Jason Schwartzman was swiftly quizzed on the upcoming film adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series.

“I saw the first 20 minutes of it and I’m very proud to be a part of it. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen in my entire life. It’s really funny, it’s really emotional, there’s a lot of romance—but the action sequences, I’ve never seen scenes quite like these. They’re really beautiful.”

Let’s hope that it lives up to his words! Michael Cera and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are also set to star in the film, which is directed by Edgar Wright of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead fame.

Read More | MTV

WEEKEND READING: Harvey Kurtzman, Stan Goldberg, Scott Pilgrim and DC!

Posted by Tom Mason Categories:

Lots of great stuff to read on the internets this weekend.

SCOTT PILGRIM: Need a fix of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim? Total Film can hook you up. Writer Sam Ashurst has an interview with Shaun of the Dead’s Edgar Wright where he talks about his forthcoming adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Here’s a sample from Wright’s pie-hole: “On one hand it’s very faithful to the books, on the other it has become something that has the structure of a romantic comedy action film.”
(h/t Forbidden Planet International Blog)

DC COMICS: Back in the day (that would, in this case, be 1989), comic book industry veteran KC Carlson worked for DC Comics. He left Madison, WI and moved to the big city where he eventually became Richard Bruning’s assistant and learned to nearly-master New York’s 1940s umbrella-and-revolving-door technology. Recently he blogged about his experience interviewing for the job, living in New York and trying to trick Mike Gold. There’s a lot of fun stuff you don’t think about until you’ve worked in the cramped Manhattan offices of a major comic book publisher. Like where to store the original oversized paintings by Dave McKean in a pre-digital era. Fascinating stuff, especially if you remember some of your DC players from the late 1980s and early 1990s.

HARVEY KURTZMAN: An undisputed genius. His work on EC Comics revolutionized storytelling and he set a high mark for how to tell war stories in comic books. He’s the founding editor of MAD when it started as a comic book parodying other comic books, back in 1952. With his long-time friend Will Elder he created Little Annie Fanny for Playboy. Kurtzman was The Onion, The Daily Show and David Letterman of the generation that came of age in the 1950s and 1960s. He popped a culture that needed popping. Post-MAD, one of the things Kurtzman did was gather a group of fellow creators - Elder, Jack Davis, and Al Jaffee, and Arnold Roth - and launch their own humor magazine: Humbug. Fantagraphics is releasing the entire 11-issue run of the magazine in a deluxe format edition. To tease you, they’ve put the entire first issue of Humbug online. If you’re familiar with Kurtzman, you’re already going to click the link. If you’re not familiar with him, see what everyone’s talking about and click the link.

STAN GOLDBERG: Did you ever wonder who colored all those great Marvel comics of the 1960s? That was Stan Goldberg. Stan spent much of his time drawing in the classic Archie house style chronicling the adventures of the gang from Riverdale, but he was also the uncredited colorist on those early Marvel classics. He’s the guy who set the color pattern for Spider-Man’s costume, made the Hulk green and the Fantastic Four’s unitards blue. Mark Evanier has all this and much, much more about the Stan at Marvel who wasn’t named “Lee.”

That’s all for this Friday. I’ll be back soon with more great stuff from all over.
(Artwork © Bryan Lee O’Malley)