Aricia's Album

Happy Birthday, Aidan Quinn -- and Welcome Back, Jack!

2011-03-09T00:26:00.001-08:00

It's March 8, which means it's Happy 52nd Birthday, Aidan Quinn!

The first time I saw Aidan Quinn was in Legends of the Fall, and I was impressed. He held his own against a Brad Pitt who, for the first time in his career, had been allowd off the leash. In retrospect, we know all about what a Brad on the rampage is capable of, and Aidan was admirable in the part of the elder brother ... more sane, more stable, competing for the hand of the lovely Julia Ormond, and not really succeeding. Though, the fact is, in real life ... welllll, I think he would have. Not that Brad's character wasn't amazing, but I think Julia's character would have opted for Aiden's character, and a long, peaceful life! And why not? Because we're talking about tasty, here ... seriously tasty!

I think the next one I saw was probably Benny and Joon, with Johnny Depp, and I'll always remember Practical Magic, with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. In Benny and Joon, Aidan went up against Johnny Depp in full-on "cute as a bug" mode, and was terrific; and in Practical Magic he had the sanest, most normal, least outrageous ... and nicest of all the characters to play, which was quite a challenge. Go up against that cast and be visible? Neat trick, if you can do it -- and what's more, he did!

So, Happy 52nd to Aidan, and many more of them.

Second bit of news that has me blogging today:

Welcome back, Jack!

As in, Sparrow.

Go to the movies right now, and you'll be seeing this:

(Click on that -- I put it up at 1000 pixels wide, because it's such a treat. May. Woot! Can't wait!

Adrian Paul, back on Australia's radar (at least on this page)

2011-01-27T20:26:00.000-08:00

I was going through boxes the other day -- trying to figure out what to chuck, to make space, because I don't live in a TARDIS (wish I did!), whaddayaknow ... so that's what happened to the Highlander paperbacks that came out in the Days of Yore, and which I used to mail order from the States because no way could you get them here.

Highlander was my favorite show back in 2000-ish, and Adrian Paul s still one of my all-time favorite actors. But when you live in this country (yeah, yeah, I come from a land downunder) you get used to living on a solid diet of A-list shows, movies and actors, because that's all the local networks buy. Anybody who isn't on the A-list will vanish off the radar. So let me see if I can do a little bit to put him back on Australia's radar!

Even for Highlander -- I used to have a mate in Canada who taped it offair for me and mailed me VHS videos, because it wasn't on here! Even now, it's not available on DVD (and before anyone leaves a comment to say, "Yes it is, it always has been," let me qualify this ... it's NOT available on Region 4 DVD, and our machines do a pretty cruddy job of playing American DVDs, which are coded Region 1, even if one could afford the high price of shipping them into the country, which -- right now, at least -- I can't).

So I lost track of Adrian Paul, big time, after about 2000, and here it is, 2011 already, and I'm wondering, "I wonder if Adrian retired?"

Ha! Good God, it's only at times like this when you realize how faaaaaar away Australia really is, and how hard you have to work (how much you have to spend!) to keep up with even the simplest little things such as, "I wonder if Adrian Paul retired?"

No, AG. The man didn't retire ... he never stopped working, he has a boatload of credits, and not only that, he still looks damned good at almost 52 (birthday = May 29).

The better question is: Why is this man not A-listed? He had the smoldery looks to blow the doors off anybody but Johnny Depp, (in fact, there's something about Christian Bale which reminds you of Adrian, and something about Adrian that reminds you of Sean Connery) plus a "weight" to his on-screen personality and performance that rivalled Brad Pitt, plus all the athleticism needed of today's action heroes, and a flair for comedy, to boot. *sigh*

So there's the answer to one question (Adrian Paul is still working, busy as a team of beavers), and another one for which there ain't no good answer, because the A-list is full of folks who have no more talent, half the looks and a quarter the athleticism. Go figure.

Anyway -- check out his IMDB list for the full catalog of credits (including Sir Francis Drake, whom he portrayed in 2009 for TV!), and here's the official site, which makes interesting viewing. Now, I'm off to work in a little while, but I'm taking an old Highlander paperback with me, and the next time I'm on a break, it'll be a blast from the past!

Have some more pictures, before I go...

Elijah Wood and Brendan Fraser ... it's all about the feet

2011-01-21T16:57:00.000-08:00

Okay -- Brendan first, then Elijah, okay? Because B comes before E, and F comes before W, maybe. Beside, this was the order I typed it in!

Journey to the Center of the Earth was one of the movies I enjoyed most in the recent ocean of 3D offerings, and a large part of the enjoyment came from the small fact Brendan Fraser plays this sort of role so well, with just enough gravitas to make you believe in the character, yet a flair for comedic timing that's second to none. So I was very sad to find that the second Journey moved (Mysterious Island, loosely based on another Verne idea) will be Brendanless.

Seems Brendan said "no thanks" when the company -- and it's New Line! -- tried to go back on the actor's fee. Promise him a certain figure, then actually pay a lot less. That's not the kind of thing any tradesman (and acting is a trade no less than plumbing ... it's just has a lot more glam and gets a lot more publicity) can go along with, so quite rightly Brendan put his hat back on and hopefully didn't slam the door too hard on his way out. Why would New Line pull this stunt? After the Lord of the Rings trilogy, they must be floating away on cash. (Then again, Peter Jackson had to sue them over non-payment of royalties, so ... go figure.)

In fact, he's signed to do a drama next. It's something called Seconds of Pleasure -- and to this point no one has the slightest idea what it's about, just that it ain't no comedy, and also stars Kristin Scott Thomas, Colin Firth and Ed Harris. Well, with a cast like that you won't go far wrong! So we can only hope it's a role that'll give Brendan the chance to flex his dramatic muscles rather than the ones he acquires (rather temporarily these days) in the gym in order to make the rambunctious big adventure movies.

So what does all this have to do with his feet? Absolutely nothing ... unless maybe the situation got him so uptight (and it'd sure do it to me!) that a nice pedicure sounded like a great way to relax...

It's a cute little story, (running here with more pictures -- but beware: Brendan ain't wearing his glamorous facade. He really is the guy next door in these pictures, so if you don't want your bubble punctured, stay on this page). Let me give you in a thimble. Lady pedicurist does a superlative job on his feet ... quotes her fee as $16. Being from Hollywood, Brendan heard "Sixty," not "Sixteen," and when the pedicurist was far too honest to let him overpay, he said words along the lines of "You need to charge more," and with a smile, paid the sixty bucks.

Cute, cute story, that, to which I have but one addition to make, after looking at the above picture: Brendan, sweetheart, put your glasses on. Squinting to read is bad for your eyes, gives you headaches, and ... God knows, everybody in the world wears glasses!

Except, I suspect Elijah Wood has switched, or is switching, to contact lenses, because you rarely see him in glasses these days, while his eyesight was notorious way back in the Frodo days.

But it really is about the feet -- again! Now, this news is so new, they haven't even updated the cast list for The Hobbit on IMDB. Go there, and you won't see the name of Elijah Wood mentioned, but (and I'm chuckling with glee!) I just saw a piece on mtv.com, and yep, there's a part in The Hobbit for Elijah. Now, he says it's a small part, which is fair enough -- especially since he's long been saying he wouldn't be putting the feet on again. Who would blame him, after seeing the routine he, Sean Astin and the other kids went through every day with those hobbit feet? Eep.

But it turns out that Elijah Wood will be back in the feet for a small part in both parts of The Hobbit, and with any luck at all they'll be able to dragoon David Tennant into the part of Thranduil, which is so close to a done deal, it's actually listed at IMDB. I would dearly love to see David Tennant as Thranduil.

Also watch out for Elijah Wood in Treasure Island, which is shooting in Puerto Rico soon-ish. Mind you, you might not recognize him! A dozen years ago he'd have been playing Jim Hawkins, but this time around (and doesn't this just show you how time flies?) he'll be playing Ben Gunn! Seriously! They're all good parts, but the cogs and gears of time never stop turning, do they?

Let's have some more pictures before I sign out for today. As I always say, it's not as if there's any shortage of them, so why be stingy?

So there you are -- a tale of four feet and five movies (The Hobbit is being done in two parts). And now ... lunch, while I watch some of the Tour Downunder on tv. Ahhh, the bliss of a day off...

Chris Hemsworth or Brad Pitt ... do I have to choose?!

2011-01-19T16:43:00.000-08:00

Yes, Aricia, you have to choose, because unless we're talking about The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which is a very special case, you can only have ONE actor playing the same part in he same movie at the same time! (Well, Doctor Who can be played by up to five actors at once, but only when there's a temporal screw-up and the universe is about to collapse. So that doesn't count. Right.)

And The Mighty Thor is the part to end all parts ... and it went to another emerging Aussie, a lad by the name of Chris Hemsworth:

Part of me (and a large part -- which isn't fair to Chris. But still, see below) wants to say, "Durnitall, I wish they'd twisted Brad Pitt's arm a bit harder, or maybe offered him some more money."

But the fact is, that's rather a daft thing to be saying in any case, because before I saw The Fellowship of the Ring, I was saying, "Viggo who? Orlando what--?" And a week before Avatar a lot of us, self included, were saying, "Sam, who-d'you-say?"

So to speak, give the lad a chance for goshsakes, because ... well, pictures speak louder than words, so let me clam up and show you a few!

And you have to admit ... if you couldn't get Brad ... about which, whimper, but they couldn't, obviously, for reasons undisclosed. Maybe Brad is too sleep deprived with all those babies running amok in the house? And just maybe he's had quite enough of living in the gym, pumping enough iron to build the Sydney Harbor Bridge, and eating like a rabbit while he does it! Don't be fooled, kids -- that's what it takes to get the ripped physique. It don't happen in nature, only in the gym where the salad bar is your only comfort. Gak. Where did I put my Mars Bar?

As I was saying, if you couldn't get Brad, get someone who'd easily pass for Brad in dim light, and especially if he can act as well. And it turns out, the lad can! The official trailer is playing across the www right now, so check this out: (click on the little icon to PLAY FULL SCREEN ... it looks great that way...)

So don't be deterred by the Bradlessness of The Mighty Thor, because I have a feeling the Aussie assault on Hollywood is about to continue with a vengeance. The late Heath Ledger, plus Hugh Jackman, Sam Worthington, Eric Bana, and before them it was Russel Crow, Sam Neill, Geoffrey Rush, and these are just the mega-stars. There's also hosts of slightly-lesser stars without whom movies just wouldn't be the same. In recent years, Sam Worthington in particular has impressed the heck out of me. He was brilliant in Terminator Salvation, and it was so cool to actually hear him in Clash of the Titans, where they let him "do" it in his own voice. Yes!! Go Aussie!! [Waves flag till somebody throws beer cans]

So I do expect to be well and truly impressed by Chris Hemsworth in this one, and I think that after May 11 you'll have a hard time visualizing anyone else in the part. Still, though, I can help thinking back on Brad Pitt in Troy, and I know I've said elsewhere on this blog that Achilles looked more like Thor than Thor does! Would I kid you? You want the evidence? Here you go:

From the trailer, it seems to me that Marvell is gifting The Mighty Thor with all due gravitas, and this is great. The one thing that had concerned me was that the project would get trivialized in the translation to the big screen. Needn't have worried, and after Iron Man, it was probably never something to waste worries on. Roll on May 6!

Taylor Kitsch is headed for Mars!

2011-01-08T22:38:00.000-08:00

There you are, you see? And you didn't believe in Santa! Turns out, dreams do occasionally come true after all ... and I have no idea how this one blew by me till I was surfing around a few hours ago, and I thought, "I wonder if you can download the John Carter of Mars books as ebooks?" So I searched on "John Carter of Mars ebooks," and came up blank ... but what did show up was "John Carter of Mars (2012)," with a URL at IMDB attached --

Hold it right there! Say -- what?

Do you remember being a little kid and stumbling backwards into the most amazing fantasy worlds, sandwiched between paperback covers? I mean, back in the days when people used to actually read. Well, John Carter of Mars is like that. It's a series of fantasy novels written around 100 years ago (in fact, 2012 will make the centenary of the publication of A Princess of Mars) by Edgar Rice Burroughs. And discovering these novels was 14-year-old heaven on a stick...

A few years ago I found that some of them had passed into the public domain, which doesn't bear thinking about. It's crass. It means the works have been abandoned. And then ... well, see above: Taylor Kitsch, who played Gambit in Wolverine, is playing the southern gentleman, John Carter, who is somewhat magically teleported to a Mars that never existed -- but by golly, there's about five generations of fantasy fans who wish it did!

Here you go -- John Carter, mostly nekkid, all ripling muscles and swords -- put Taylor Kitsch into this costume and let your imagination rip! And the similarly almost nekkid Dejah Thoris, who's being played by Lyn Collins, also out of Wolverine. In fact, Wolverine is the only movie I've seen her in, but I liked what I saw.

Now, loooong before all this headed for the movie screen (and you just know it's going to be done in 3D, right? At least, I'm hoping and praying it will be) this whole "universe" was created down to the last exotic moon hurtling through the tropic skies of this fantasy Mars. Burroughs wrote 11 of these volumes as the "Barsoom Series" (there's actually a round dozen, but the last two were short -- they came out in SF magazines of the day -- and were later published under one cover. Check out the Wikipedia page for the series.)

And bringing this to the screen will have been a job on about the same scale as Avatar, because ... this is where it gets interesting. Taylor Kitsch and Lyn Collins have got it easy. All they have to do is live in the gym, look great in skimpy costumes, and run about being athletic in front of big green screens...

...and I'm pretty sure they can manage to do that! But consider the part of Tars Tarkas:
For a start, he has four arms and is about ten feet tall, and green. And here's where the production starts to run along the same lines of Avatar, because (yowzer!) Willem Dafoe is going to play Tars Tarkas, and he can only be doing it the way Sam Worthington played Jake Sully's avatar. You've seen the "making of Avatar" movie, right? It's runs 104 minutes and it packed on Disk 3 of the Special Collector's edition of Avatar that was stacked up under about ten million Christmas trees around the world, along with the aftershave and curling wands and RC trucks.

You saw Willen Dafoe as the Green Goblin in Spiderman. And you actually won't see him in John Carter of Mars --

-- because the character of Tars Tarkas looks nowhere near human. It's not like putting Sam Worthington's face on a Na'vi. It's more like Andy Sirkis playing Gollum -- in fact, Sirkis also did the motion capture for King Kong, which was an interesting switch of roles. From the smallest character to the biggest. Neat.

I would have to say, I think it takes vast courage for an actor to play these parts, because he's going to be utterly invisible, yet he can't just "phone it in," like an actor doing a voice part -- say, Johnny Depp voicing Rango the lizard. Any actor doing performance capture is going to be on the set, flinging himself around in front of the big green screen, taking all the falls, and yet he's going to be utterly invisible. My hat's off to Willem Dafoe, same as it was to Andy Sirkis.

So now I'm going to be on tenterhooks for a year and a half, because Disney Pixar has John Carter slated for release in June 2012. So long? Waaaaah! I believe I shall spit the dummy.

But a dream is in the process of coming true. The movie also stars Mark Strong and Thomas Haden Church. These might not be names that ring bells with you, but you saw Strong as the villain in the Sherlock Holmes movie (the Robery Downey Jr. and Jude Law version), and you must have seen Church as the villainous, vile Lyle van der Groot in George of the Jungle. No? Really?! Then you missed one of the major treats of our time -- Brendan Fraser at age 28, buff-naked, having just walked out of the gym. (Buff -- what? You forgot the shower scene, with the bar of soap? Shame on you. Go rent the movie. Now.)

So I'll just have to be patient, and make do with the move is that are coming along in a few months: Johnny Depp is back as Jack, and word is, it's 3D. Then Anthony Hopkins is Odin in The Mighty Thor -- which is definitely 3D. And the next Star Trek movie is also due ... but if it's 3D, by golly, I hope they NAIL THE CAMERA TO SOMETHING and stop it jiggling around, because if they do the jiggly camera thing from the previous movie, and add 3D too, AG will be in the bathroom, tossing her popcorn.

Patience, my children.

Surfings on New Year's Eve ... Ewan McGregor, Robert Downey Jr. and the sexiest folks on the planet

2010-12-31T03:26:00.000-08:00

An hour to spare on New Year's Eve is a good thing, so what do I do? Surf. Well, put the feet up, have a cup of coffee, and surf. And you'd be surprised what's sizzling...

Ewan McGregor: death threats on the set of his latest movie (!) and at last -- at long last -- I Love You, Philip Morris is getting an airing, starting at Christmas.

What's this about death threats against Ewan --? Seems a looney toon -- an American actor living in Thailand, playing extra parts -- would dearly like to put a knife into Ewan. But at least up till Christmas Eve he just wrote the desire into poems ... and was caught in Ewan's trailer, writing said iffy literature! Here's the rest of the story -- and it's bizarre, in a subtle kind of way. So off-key and under-played, you gotta remember the dialog given to Johnny Depp in his new one, when he's trying to convince the police of the importance of an attempted murder as opposed to, say, room service. Indulge yourself in a shiver.

Meanwhile, looks like the forgotten Phillip Morris gay romance is on the big screen at last and, surprise, surprise, it's getting good reviews. It opened right before Christmas, at last in some parts of the US, and here's the review from the Idaho Statesman. Better late than never ... and remember the old adage, "Success is the sweetest revenge."

Here's a really neat interview with Ewan ... you have to love the line, "You want coffee with that, Obiwan?"

Well, actually ... yes, ta.

So ... who's the sexiest human alive on the planet? I guess you'd have to allow for a he and a she in that category -- certainly Fandango.com did, and they came up with some very, very interesting results. Get this:

Guys voted Natalie Portman (currently pregnant) the sexiest lass on Earth this year ...

Gals voted Penelope Cruz the sexiest woman in the World. Which is a chalk mark for older women, because Cruz is 37. Oh yes, and also pregnant.

And meanwhile...

Guys voted Johnny Depp the sexiest man alive -- in praise of older fellas, yes? He's 47, and I was just saying the other day, he's delicious. But who did women vote for?

Gals also voted for Johnny Depp, with Robert Downey Jr., who's a debonair 45, behind him --

No Brad and Ange? No Orlie and, uh, so on? Nope. And no young-young folks. The youngest of the lot, here, is Natalie, who'll be 30 in six months.

Interesting that the consensus point, where both genders agreed, was Johnny. And the girls' choice of Robert Downey Jr. should be quite encouraging to guys who've actually learned to shave recently. Interestingly, Downey says he feels his age, and the limitations of it. Don't we all!

Now, that's worth writing home about. Or at least worth writing a blog post about, while I watch the countdown to the fireworks.

And you have to admit, this is nice:

Jack Sparrow at his tipsy best. The movie is going to be loads of fun. And for now --

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Hugh Jackman v. Shane Warne ... ah! Now, that's cricket!

2010-12-26T22:38:00.000-08:00

A great treat for anyone who's into cricket, and following Hugh Jackman ... or into Hugh Jackman and following the cricket...

...and boy, can Hugh handle a cricket bat! In fact, given the absolute collapse of the Aussie batting side in this Boxing Day Test match, one wants to say the selectors need to bribe Shane Warne to come out of retirement and save the day, and also hire Hugh Jackman to replace one of the pretty useless Aussie batsmen.

Merry Christmas, cricket fans!

Avatar ... "see it again for the first time" -- trust me on this!

2010-12-26T17:45:00.001-08:00

It's not often that I review a movie, much less a DVD, but this time I can't resist! This one actually came out waaay back on November 16, but since it was gift wrapped and under the Christmas tree, I had to wait for it...

It's the Avatar Extended Collector's edition -- 20 minutes longer than the 3D version we saw about a year ago. Verdict?

Whooooooo! Words fail me. In places, it's like you're seeing the movie for the first time. It must have broken the hearts of James Cameron and company, having to trim the movie to the theatrical release version. Especially as you'll find, on the disks, that even after 20 was put back in to create the 3-hour version seen here, there's still another 45 minutes of deleted scenes!

Meaning, one day (next Christmas?) They might field the 4-hour version, in ultra-widescreen, not to mention 3D, for those people who have the occasional five grand to invest in the tv set to play it. I'm not investing in 3D tellies for a while. The first ones to go on sale just months ago are already being called obsolete, so I'm waiting a few years till the technology is passe, it's good enough to a) be worth the asking price, b) be stable enough for the hardware not to go obsolete while cringe over your credit card balance. And also, there needs to be a lot more 3D movies to feed it, to make it worth the hammering the Visa card is going to take!

But this version...

...is magnificent. There's no other word for it. If you've seen Avatar before, but haven't seen this version -- well, it only costs $19.99 in a sale, and if you can use it to invite yourself over to a mate's place, because you've got the DVD and they've got the bigscreen TV, so much the better. Have a look at this:

If you like your movies epic, as I do, and you like your SF breathtaking, just bite the bullet and buy it again!

One other thing: keep a box of kleenex handy, because the additional material puts a heavy kick into situations and scenes that were already highly-charged.

The panic about Johnny Depp's face

2010-12-19T17:50:00.000-08:00

I was on one of the celebrity/movie forums the other day, and didn’t know if I ought to be appalled, amused, anxious, or just cave in to an age-old case of ennui.

In certain Juvenile Fangirl circles there’s a bit of a panic on. It’s all about Johnny Depp’s face.

You would not believe (well, maybe you would!) the things they’re saying about him. The remarks would be called spiteful, hurtful, if they weren’t simply so stupid that you can just visualize the vapid little creatures making them – and, well, one doesn’t get cross with the intellectually challenged for being intellectually challenged. Or, one shouldn’t.

It’s all about how Johnny looks in the new movie, The Tourist. Apparently, according to these fangirls, his face looks “bloated and wrinkly” – in fact, according to two of them (and no one else argued the point) he looks like Pavarotti. One curious little creature remarked, “I think my heart just imploded,” and another commented, “I never thought the day would come when Johnny Depp would be unattractive to me.”

The bottom line is, “What’s wrong with his face?????!!!!!”

Oh , dear.

As anyone who has spent more than a handful of years living on this planet knows with painfully acuity… sorry dudes, it’s perfectly natural. It’s so natural, it has a name. We call it “the ageing process,” and it happens to everyone at some age between about 36 and 45.

Johnny Depp is now 47. He doesn’t look like he’s 34 anymore. Short of plastic surgery, there’s nothing much you can do about it, and as a lifetime smoker he’s not going to get plastic surgery … well, not and have it heal properly. Whacko Jacko, here we come, if we’re not careful.

Mother Nature was uncommonly kind to Johnny. Other guys’ looks blow out when they’re in their late thirties – and the early warning signs are frequently there when they’re far younger. Johnny hung onto incredibly young looks for a whole decade longer, and that’s probably due to genetics, because he sure as heck hasn’t been kind to his body. Substance abuse is not a prescription for longevity (nor is longevity the same thing as looking young into your 50s).

But time is passing, my children! Even for Johnny. In fact, unless your name is Peter Pan or Dorian Grey, this is one of life’s most challenging realities. Even if people stay very fit and very healthy, the ageing process is ticking away in the background. You can be as fit and healthy as you were at 30 or 35, but at 50 or 55, the changes will show in your face, because the shape of the face changes with every decade we live. The prime example of this is Jackie Chan, who is so fit at 56, there ought to be a law against it ... but human genetics decide the shape of one’s face at 25, at 40, at 55... and being in-shape has nooooothing to do with it:

A loooong time ago, in my mostly misspent youth, I actually qualified as a beautician. Didn’t go through to beauty therapist, because I started to get terrible allergic reactions to the chemicals in the cosmetics; also, over six months of classes, I never saw one of the expensive salon cosmetic treatments actually work to retard anyone’s ageing. It all started to look like a big con job, and since I was sick of having rashes, itching and sneezing at the toxic (!) chemical goo people paid $100 to have plastered on the thinnest skin on their bodies … suffice to say, I quit while I was ahead. But I came out of the experience with enough certificates to work as a beautician if I wanted to (which I don’t), and also with a clear understanding of why the face changes as we get older.

But you wouldn’t be interested in why. To quote Threepio, “Don’t get technical with me!” So we’ll look at the “how,” not the “why.” And I asked an artist mate of mine, who has the fundamental artist’s eye -- and who specializes in depicting faces and bodies -- to write the next paragraph. So here’s Jade, to tell you in as few words as possible, how the human face changes over time:

“The visible change is due to how tissues “drape” on the facial bones. Soft tissues are held in place by skin that never stops growing, long as we live. The older we get, the more skin we have, and the less “firm” the tissues become inside the skin. You start to see baby jowls at about 35. By 40 the force of gravity is starting to get obvious. In your 40s, for some reason (no one knows why; it just does) your face fills out. It spreads sideways, so your cheeks fill out. Gravity pulls it down, hence the jowls. By 50, most people are heavy-ish in the jaw. By 60, most are thick-faced, jowly. The neck seems to be thickening – part of it’s facial tissues heading south due to gravity and skin which is now far too slack (there’s too much of it) to hold the face up where it used to be. Meanwhile, the always-growing skin makes the eyes start to look smaller, because the lids get bigger. Your eyes aren’t shrinking, but eyelids droop because they’re growing. Top lids close over the eyes, making them look smaller; bottom lids get baggy. The face looks “tired.” By 70, everyone’s skin is thinning – even guys, whose skin starts out far thicker than female skin. You start to lose complexion around 55 – 60; by 70 European skin is usually pale or (if you’re olive skinned) sallow, with a tendency to “age spots” (skin pigment irregularities. The process starts in your 40s, but you confuse them with freckles), and when you tan you start to look like brown paper, not healthy young skin. Cartilages also keep growing. By 60-65, everyone’s nose and ears are visibly bigger. Meanwhile, sun, smokes and booze cause wrinkles. You can always avoid wrinkles (don’t do drugs, smokes and booze, and stay out of the sun. Duh), but even if you never get wrinkles, your face will be different in every decade of your life due to skin growth and gravity.”

...and let's poodle down memory lane across about 25 years, to see this in action:

Thanks to Jade for that. She’s not a beauty therapist, she’s an artist. Check out her art blog here, to see the breadth of her experience in making, and depicting, human faces. She knows intimately how the human face ages, because of painting, drawing and modelling it in 3D.

And there you have it, folks. Johnny Depp is 47, and the only way he’s going to look 34 again is plastic surgery. Here’s the downside: smokers are considered poor candidates for plastic surgery, because they don’t heal properly. Smoking destroys your peripheral circulation. Johnny’s a life-long smoker, so the risks of surgery are too high. Also, press and general public alike love to ridicule men who have plastic surgery for youthening, and when it goes wrong you’re widely touted as one of the biggest idiots on the street, and also guilty of the sin of vanity. Uh…huh.

So … sorry, dudes, here’s your bottom line: Johnny Depp looks like an absolutely drop-dead GORGEOUS 47. Which is exactly what he is. There is nothing wrong with his face. It’s perfectly normal. It happens to us all at about 45, plus or minus a couple of years for whatever reason, and the surgeon’s knife is the only alternative … but not for smokers.

To Senior Fangirls of my age (I’m 50. Ish) we recognize aaallllll the signs, because they’re happening to us too. To Juvenile Fangirls of 20 who have not yet lived on this planet for long enough to know the realities, what can I say?

It’s time to find out if you’re in love with the man or his face. If you love the man, you’ll see that he’s drop-dead gorgeous … he just isn’t all that terribly young anymore, and you’ll love him to bits for many other reasons beside the cheekbones and eyes and lips that have changed with time.

And incidentally where is it written than he must remain young, when only Dorian Grey and Peter Pan ever beat the clock?!

If it turns out that you were actually in love with sculpted cheeks, vast, lustrous eyes, a shaggy mane of thick dark hair, and sensuously pouting lips, rather than being in love with Johnny Depp himself … it’s simply time to hitch up to another young star with quite similar qualities. I suggest you have a look at Ben Barnes (29 last August) … but be prepared to switch again in about 15 years, because the same thing is going to happen to Ben.

It’s one of the natural parts of being human. Older fangirls know all about this, kids. It’s a tough lesson to learn, innit?

But for the ultimate stupidity, and the note on which I’ll close today I’m going to defer to a complete berk commenting on a YouTube video of a retired sportsman, a former cricketing hero who is now 56. “I hate seeing people like [him] grow old,” said our guest idiot. “People like sporting heroes, rock stars and actors should have the decency to die young…”

And that takes the cake, leaves you dumbfounded, doesn’t it? We have laws about expressing prejudice regarding color, race and religion … where’s the law controlling the spiteful, hurtful and outright stupid dialog we permit regarding the prejudice against the natural human ageing process? Where’s the regulation stating that it is against the Code of Practise of public websites to say that premature death should be prerequisite for anyone born with the attributes of Orlando Bloom or Christopher Plummer (there, that’s confounded you, hasn’t it? Because he’s 84 years old now … and I remember him near stark-naked, dressed in gold jewelry and feathers, with a hip-length mane of raven hair, and a lissom bronzed body to die for …)

Message to Johnny: “Ignore ’em, sweetheart. You’re gorgeous, and you know you are. Let ’em grow up, and if their memories are long enough they’ll blush at the stupidity they’re posting today.”

Message to Christopher: “Some of us have long memories, and … nothing is forgotten. Nothing is even halfway forgotten. [insert yummy sound]”

Message to Ben: “Go for it kid – give ’em hell, and have a grand time doing it! Don’t tarry … d’you know the poem? 'The bird of time has but a little way to fly, and lo, the bird is on the wing.'”

And here, have a couple more pictures ... on the mouse, as Captain Jack would say:

Coming up for the third time: Brad and Ange ... getting Brangelated. At last!

2010-12-15T02:50:00.000-08:00

Or is it the fourth time? I've lost count! Seems like every 6 - 12 months the magazine covers are all reporting Brad and Ange married in secret, at ceremonies so private even their friends didn't know they'd done it. Uh...huh.

But this one could be real. This time around it's a wedding in the planning, and it's not the ordinary hitching. It's a Hindu wedding set to take place in Jodhpur, with their guru presiding.

Sounds great to me. I just have three hopes:

1) This is a true story and they actually are planning to do it;

2) They really go through with it when push comes to shove; and

3) The marriage lasts longer than the courtship.

Come on, kids, let's see you do it! And if you'd like to know more, the whole story broke in the Indian press earlier today am spilled over into the western press a few hours later. Here's a link -- http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/92223/20101215/angelina-jolie-brad-pitt-marriage-jodhpur-siddha-yoag.htm -- and a quick tickle of Google will turn up a load of goodies on Siddha yoga, and "guru to the stars" Ram Lal Siya.

Oh, what the heck? Let's have some more pictures, while we're here. Don't you hate those blogs and sites where they dole out the news in bits you could inhale without even sneezing, and then give you one little picture for your time and trouble of gracing their pages? It's not as if there's a shortage of pictures for goshsakes! Here -- feast your eyes, and enjoy:

Dick van Dyke -- Happy 85th!!

2010-12-13T18:20:00.001-08:00

Happy 85th birthday to one of my all-time favorite entertainers -- Dick van Dyke. This guy was one of the faces and voices of my childhood, which is something I guess I share with a lot of people in this age group -- anything from 40 to 60. I'll never forget some of the movies like Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang ... and then being dumbfounded at the man's verve, energy and charisma in Night at the Museum.

Here's the thing of it: movies are a time machine. You watch the same movie at 10 and at 30, and you see two different movies. As a kid you just see the adventure and love the movie -- the flying car and all. At 30, you're going, "Lionel Jeffries was fantastic in that," and "Gawd, d'you remember Benny Hill and Stanley Unwin? Those were the days," and "Whoah, that's one damned attractive hunk of male -- what have I been missing?"

You notice, you read some really, really stupid things on YouTube. Like the complete idiot who thought Dick van Dyke was born a Cockney, because he played one Cockney part in his entire career. Cheese-zeus. His Cockney accent was good, but not quite good enough to pass the sniff test of real Londoners (who apparently can pick the flaws in Johnny Depp's Cockney -- inFrom Hell, for example. At which point I started to conclude that it's all in their imagination, because Johnny Depp's Cockney is utterly, absolutely, totally identical to Michael Caine, who is Cockney born and bred -- and anything else is all in your head).

Sorry for the digression. YouTube is great, but sometimes the comments get you steamed up.

Happy Birthday, Dick van Dyke ... and may you be entertaining us for many, many years to come!

Shane Warne bowls his maiden over ... howzat?!!

2010-12-12T22:55:00.001-08:00

It's official, sports fans: the golden boy of Australian cricket is shacked up (or in the process of shacking up -- that being a verb: "that I shall have shacked up") with one of moviedom's bad girls -- Liz Hurley herself.

A couple of months ago Liz's marriage to Indian hubby Arun Nayar fizzled, and she's been spotted in London canoodling with Shane at a major hotel ... and looking out from one of the celebrity suites, in the same company. Which makes is official enough to be worth a post right here.

Shane was up to his bowling arm in scandal a few years ago, when he was caught cheating on the wife with an English lass whose charms were ... pneumatic would be the diplomatic term. Golly, what does he see in Liz?

Weellllll, maybe that's a no-brainer. There is another question, but. The reverse of the above. Hmmm.

And speaking of Shane, with the current Ashes series turning into Ritual Slaughter for the Australians, there's fans by the boatload down on their knees, begging "Warney" to come out of retirement, out the baggy green back on, get out there and save the day.

Seems Shane has better things to do!

Farewell Leslie Nielsen

2010-11-28T22:42:00.001-08:00

It seems like only last week that I was writing a brief obit for another Canadian personality, Maury Chaykin ... and today is sad, because we farewell a Canadian legend, never mind a personality. Leslie Nielsen passed away at the age of 84, of pneumonia. He was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, in 1926, and and the first time I saw him he was on another planet ... a forbidden planet, in fact.

Across more than 40 years I saw him in more movies than I can count, but I'll always remember him as Buck Frobisher in Due South. The show's folk lore says that the film crew didn't even know how to lace Constable Benton Fraser's Mountie boots up right, till Leslie showed 'em how when he guest-starred in an early first season episode. Turns out, his dad had been a Mountie!

Farewell, Leslie Nielsen. You will definitely be missed by about three generations of movie and TV fans. Here's the whole story on IMDB, in far more depth than I could hope to approximate here.

Captain Jack ... what's in a name?

2010-11-21T23:30:00.001-08:00

And apparently, when the name is "Captain Jack," there's a heck of a lot in it. In fact, I was very tempted to chuck all the images in here and say, "There, sort them out yourself!" But no. Would I do that to you? Well, I probably would if I didn't have the time to do this properly, but since I do...!

There's at least EIGHT Captain Jacks that I know of, and you could probably find someone out there who knows some more. But right now let's have a look at the eight of 'em. This gallant company starts with the one you probably know best, or second-best:

There you go ... with strains of The Johnny Depp Song going around your head ... Jack Sparrow himself! What's the Johnny Depp song? Allow me to illuminate you:

Okay --! So that's one down, seven more to go! The other one you probably know best, or second best: Harkness, Jack Harkness ... the time agent from the 51st Century who's now not merely immortal but indestructible:

...and now it gets better, because you get two Jack Harknesses for the price of one:

And if you think your glasses just steamed up, and you didn't see that right, here's Take Two ... oooooh, yes you did:

Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood, 2007, meet Captain Jack Harkness of the US Airforce, 1941. Boy meets boy, the old, old story, right?

Okay, there's three down! Next:

Let me transport you back to 1980, or thereabouts. Captain Jack Vincent ... the show was Smuggler, a young adults' adventure series set in the Napoleonic Wars. Some episodes were too juvenile to really "travel well" across the generations, but some were absolutely top-notch. This Captain Jack was brooding, simmering ... smuggling in fact. So there's Number Four. Next?

Your grandmom would tell you, maybe with a quiver in her voice, that John Wayne wasn't always old and grizzled. You demand the evidence before you believe? Okay, you got it. Our generation didn't invent gorgeous, we only think we did:

And this here, with the hat and the major sideburns in the color still above, is Captain Jack ... Stewart. The movie is Reap the Wild Wind, and it's still a good watch, about sixty years later! So that's Captain Jack number 5. Next?

Now it gets musical. Enter Billy Joel at stage left:

Not sure if I'd call Billy's music "timeless." Not usually my kind of thing, actually, but there sure is a Captain Jack coming at you from this direction ... and if you're in the mood for two Captain Jacks for the price of one again, here's Billy Joel's Jack, plus the one in the greatcoat ... "Captain Jack will get you high tonight." (Warning to the faint hearted: there's some stuff on the soundtrack that rates this MA15, and some visuals, likewise.)

So that's Captain Jack number Six. Still two to go, that I know of ... and I'm sure there's others. Drop me a line, kids, and I'll update this. But in the meantime, try this for a golden oldie: Captain Jack and the Mermaid was a folk album that came out in 1975 ... and I've been listening to the audio CD since about 1982. Would give anything for a CD version, but you can't beg, borrow or steal them. You can only get Captain Jack as Amazon MP3 downloads ... and if you're not in America, you're outta luck, because Amazon MP3 is another Americans Only club. Here is is:

And I know the cover of a music album doesn't mean a heck of a lot, so try this instead ... YouTube to the rescue, to a point. They won't let you embed a videoclip. It's a good song, though not the best on the album (The Elf Glade is the best ... whoooo!)

And there is actually one more Captain Jack. The real one -- real, live historical character. The Black Irish Band has recorded the story. The first 75 seconds of this video give you a history lesson, so if you just want the song, fast forward to 1:15. But this is the real deal:

Starring as Captain Jack:

Johnny Depp as Sparrow
John Barrowman as Harkness
Matt Rippy as the "real" Harkness
Oliver Tobias as Vincent
John Wayne as Stewart

With music by Billy Joel, Meg Davis and Black Irish.

Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did!

Mad Max 4: not coming soon to a theater anywhere near you

2010-11-19T18:13:00.000-08:00

Mad Max 4 ... and it's not good news. With the movie delayed yet again, all cst announcements (or predictions, or inspired guesses) made in the past are void. If you check Sam Worthington's page at IMDB.com, you won't see a mention of Mad Max 4 there. [AG sighs heavily]

The reason for the current delay: Climate Change-1, Max Rockatansky-0.

Seriously. This ran on the ABC in October, and they were not joshing you:

Filming of George Miller's fourth Mad Max, Fury Road, has been postponed for a second time.

Production is now expected to begin in Broken Hill in 2012.

Accommodation provider Hugh Gough says he received an email from Kennedy Miller

Productions at the weekend informing him filming would not start in February as planned.

Mr Gough says no reason was given for the delay.

This is the second time the film has been delayed. In July, Kennedy Miller Productions said unseasonal rains had made Broken Hill too fertile.

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/11/3034506.htm

If I had to make an inspired guess, I'd say Kennedy Miller will have to shoot around Sam Worthington's schedule ... no longer do you just give out your orders about when you want to shoot. He's a busy boy and a mega-star. That'll push the scheduling for the movie around -- and there's no guarantee you can get him in any case.

Also, you wait for Mama Nature to turn the Broken Hill region back into an iron oxide desert, if you want Mad Max to look like, well, like Mad Max. No good filming there, if it looks like Ireland! See what climate change is doing, and how real it is? Sheesh. Can't even make a movie without being sabotaged by fields of flowers in a region that oughtta look like the planet Mars.

Breaking into song for a second, "You must remember this..."

And it's a real pity the delays have caused the cast to evaporate, because I could really believe Sam Worthington in this part...

Back to the drawing board. Patience is a virtue ... I guess. Well, poop.

Johnny Depp: more tattoos, because you asked!

2010-11-14T14:15:00.000-08:00

If there's one page on this blog that's five times more popular than any other page, it's the post where I talked about Johnny Depp's body art. But that was a year ago, and I've been wondering if there's more art on the man now, or failing that more pictures of the art on the man. And it turns out, there are, a you no doubt noticed from the above.

Then there's a whole 'nother category: tattoos of Johnny Depp, rather than on Johnny Depp...

And that's pretty darned cool. I wonder if that one's permanent, or if it's one of those temporary ones that wash off after the convention has finished? Is there a way to tell, by just looking rather than getting in there and attacking part of it with a pot scrubber? Mind you, I think the person actually wearing the tat would notice, sooner or later, if you did that ... and one might get oneself busted in the chops, and the pot scrubber shoved somewhere less than pleasant.

Oh, what the heck? Let's have some more Johnny Depp pictures. Why? Because I feel like it. Is there any better reason? Do you even need a reason to get out your Johnny Depp pictures? Sheesh.

John Barrowman: go west, young time agent!

2010-11-13T22:09:00.001-08:00

This isn't news ... to be news, I'd have had to put this post up in mid-August! But it's interesting to me, because I finally, finally got to see the third season, the miniseries, of Torchwood -- Children of Earth. This also ain't a review, because it's too late for that, as well ... shows you how much a much of a chaos my life has been lately!

You might be wondering what I thought of Children of Earth? I'll give it 9 out of 10, and I only dock the last mark because the ending was downbeat enough that I'm not sure I want to shell out $45 (incl. p+h) to buy it.

I'm not talking about the death of Jack's lover and best mate, Ianto Jones ... that, I can accept as necessary, painful and marvellously dramatic. But I have to admit, I was expecting a much more upbeat conclusion -- Jack always found a way to save the day in style. He certainly saves the day in this one, but the "style" is grand tragedy, a la Wagner. Everything has blown away on the wind, and Torchwood is literally over. Gone. Hmmm.

Now, to viewers in Australia and England, the miniseries was dark and absolutely harrowing -- far more so than we're accustomed to from TV, and especially from something like Torchwood. Imagine my surprise to read the American reviews, where not one but several critics referred to the same five hours of digital video as (get this), "good fun," and "lighthearted."

Uh....hunh? Hey, whatever, dudes.

If they thought Children of Earth was good, lighthearted fun, gawd only knows what they're accustomed to watching on American TV, and I don't wanna even speculate about that!

And what worries me is -- and given the above!! -- Torchwood is heading west. To America.

If this is news to you (maybe you've been working as hard as me for the last six months and haven't seen much Internet, much less a magazine!) I'll give you a quick bulletin: against the odds, the show was picked up for a 10-episode fourth season, all of which is going to be one loooong extended story -- but one of the sponsors is the US cable network, Starz, and their involvement takes the show to America and adds an American cast. Which is fair enough ... if American money is paying for it, they want to listen to American actors, not to Welshmen, right? Right. That's not what worries me.

What does worry me is that if American critics thought Children of Earth was good, lighthearted fun, by the time the new writing team gets done "rebooting" the show, as they put it, it could be so dark, so dismayingly dismal, a lot of us won't be watching it. And there's a tragedy, because some of us fell head over heels for Jack so long ago, he was still dancing on a spaceship, in midair, in front of Big Ben, at the time! He's Russel T. Davies's ninth symphony ... he's a gay icon ... and therefore the Americanization of Torchwood fills me with dread.

Having said that, I'll give it a whirl, give everyone the benefit of the doubt. The new writing team certainly has great credentials (see this for more), and it just depends how dark Starz will want to make it. In all seriousness, if Jack Harkness were a real human being, rather than a character in a TV show, he would be stark, raving mad by this time, after what he's done, and seen, and had done to him.

And here's the thing: maybe Jack is bonkers. There's a lot you can do with a character who's actually insane, though the insanity is soooo subtle, you don't see it at once. You could weave what Mel Keegan called "a darkness incandescent" about him. And I have no doubt John Barrowman will be absolutely, bloody amazing in the part, if only the audience can hang on long enough to watch ten potentially depressing episodes.

Here's something else that's interesting. The British style of acting is not "satisfying" to American critics. To Commonwealth eyes, the performances on Torchwood (and esp. this last series) have been utterly outstanding. American reviewers referred to them as mediocre. It's the style of the performance which doesn't "jive" with the American dramatic requirement ... so, again, we can look for subtle differences in the new one -- Torchwood: The New World.

And there was I, hoping "the new world" might be Mars or Castrovalva, or maybe Callufrax. No such luck!

UPDATE:
Two things. Several people asked why I didn't run a video or an least a pic of Jack and Ianto in full-on romance mode, and that's a hell of a good question ... so here it is:

Second thing: thanks so much to Jade for "cross pollinating" with me on her latest post, and if I helped to inspire the shots where (whooooo!) Jarrat and Stone finally get it together, then ... well, I'll just do a few laps of the room without touching the floor here! And check this out:

Here's the post where the full set of images appear. At risk of sounding like the kid in the movie, with the bowl and the spoon, "Can we have some more?"

Home from Atlantis and headed for Aquilonia ... Jason Momoa

2010-11-12T22:22:00.000-08:00

There are times when your jaw drops, and someone could knock you flat with a handy feather. This is one of them:

Jason Momoa as Conan the Barbarian --

No, I'm not kidding you! I'm serious! That's the Jason Momoa you know from Stargate Atlantis. You know, huge, dark and unspeakably gorgeous?

They've been trying to get this movie into gear for a couple of years now. The generic poster was painted for it, using the old genre of the torso with the head missing off the top, out of frame, and you notice it says CONAN 2009...

...well, it ain't 2009, kiddies. Anybody looked at the calendar lately? Mine says 2010. In fact, it says Almost At The End of 2011.

Last time I heard of the new Conan movie was waaay back in January, here:
http://www.slashfilm.com/jason-momoa-is-the-new-conan-the-barbarian/

At the time Jason Momoa was just one of three actors being considered for the part. God knows who the other two were. But the other day I was killing a few of those "hurry up and wait" minutes, and I landed on the Frank Frazetta official website. You might not know Frank Frazetta, but he was the artist who painted the covers for the classic Conan novels waaaay back in the 1960s...

I was on the website because I'd seen something recently that looked like a Tribute to Frank Frazetta, and I was thinking, "Damn, don't say Frank died." Yep, he did. In fact, he died back in May, 2010. Well, rats. He was one amazing artist. But while I was on the official site there was this photo ... and I knew that face.

"Get your first official look at Jason Momoa as Conan," it said.

Whoooo! Movie slated for 2011 release. Think I'm telling porkies? Would I do that? See here, for yourself: http://www.frankfrazetta.net/

That's the official Frank Frazetta page, Jason Momoa and all.

Oh yeah, this can be Conan...

Then, for the second time in five minutes, you could have knocked me down with the same feather again. I couldn't resist reading the comments on the article -- which is usually a mistake, because incredible idiots say unbelievably stupid things which just get the steam puffing out of your ears, right?

Sure enough, somebody did. Some certifiable loony says this: "He's not big enough to be Conan. Sigh. Will no one get the Conan thing right? They should really start by reading the original 12 books by Robert Howard. Arnold was great because he had a thick northern accent that Howard wrote of and was certainly huge. I hope like heck that the writers, directors and producers take the time (what like two weeks) to read he originals..." etc., etc. etc.

And before I could chime in with my ten pennies' worth, I saw there was a reply on this. Not only that -- are you ready for this? -- the reply was from Jade379, which if course is OUR Jade, the Jade, the artist, our artist! You know -- this Jade. Yeah. And she said the whole thing, perfectly...

Jason Momoa is a lot taller than Arnie ... a lot! I guess you're talking about the huge muscle mass when you say he's too small, right? I *have* read the REH cassic novels, and I think the size thing is all relative. Conan was described as huge ... Jason Momoa is actually enormous -- watch a few episodes of Stargate, and see. Also, he's an actor, and might easily affect a northern accent, with a good dialog coach. I've a feeling it's the comic art that makes us think of Conan as being a bit like a "shaved gorilla." In reality, it's endless hours in a gym, lifting weights, that makes a guy look like that. Conan's lifestyle, as depicted in the first movie -- all that running!! -- wouldn't build or maintain that body. He'd wind up looking a lot like you see right here in this pic. Food for thought!

Go to the page, see it, it's all there: http://theflickcast.com/2010/06/22/get-your-first-official-look-at-jason-momoa-as-conan/#more-40169

Is that cool, or what?!

David Tennant: Fright Night and Facelift. Whoooo!

2010-11-11T21:14:00.001-08:00

Being rather a fan of David Tennant (who is my favorite of all the Doctors) I try to keep up with what he's doing whenever I have a spare hour ... which isn't all that often these days!

So, I search on "David Tennant" and ... well, I see this and I think to myself, "Good lord, they're remaking FACELIFT!!!"

And you're thinking to yourself, "What the bleep is Facelift, and why should I care?" Or else, "What the bleep is AG babbling on about now?!"

Well, it's like this:

And that's Martin Shaw as Zax in a 1984 Channel 4 SF musical called (!) FACELIFT. Zax was a magician ... a stage magician who had actual powers. It was a shoestring production, but it was amazing -- actually well worth remaking with modern technology. Get me going one day and I'll tell you about it!

But no, actually David Tennant is not actually starring as Zax in a remake of FACELIFT ... he's starring in a remake of FRIGHT NIGHT, in which Roddy McDowall played Peter Vincent, the vampire hunter:

And it turns out that Roddy McDowall is also one of my all-time favorite actors, so I'm happy as a clam here. Can't wait for the remake ... of FRIGHT NIGHT, that is. And you're so right, I'd love to see a remake of FACELIFT, and I wouldn't at all mind if David Tennant were to play Zax. Martin Shaw was very good in the part -- and what an oddball Zax was. Beautiful, but odd.

Hatsune Miku, Iron Man and Star Wars. Say -- what?!

2010-11-11T19:14:00.000-08:00

Remember when you were told (if you're an SF fan, that is, and talking to somebody who likes to pooh-pooh SF and tell you everything is 1000 yeas in the future) that holograms were never going to happen because they have no foundation in real science?

Well, just now and again the SF fan gets the last laugh. And I'm chortling in large amounts of glee. And I haven't even opened the Father O'Leary's yet.

This here is something called Hatsune Miku. She (it?) is an anime pop star. It's a hologram that performs with a live band. Onstage. Live, in front of a live audience that's looking at the performance from every angle. So there's no way to fake it -- and why would you want to? Charlatanism is not what this is abut. It's just about a band on tour, and they animated their icon.

Now, anime isn't my thing -- and for somebody who grew up on Marineboy and Gigantor the Space Age Robot I say that with all due fervor and a couple of shudders. To me, the fascination of the Histune Miku hologram isn't any interest in the ainme popstar. But ... golly, that could be a hologram of ... anything. Anyone.

It could be the computer interfaces you saw in IRON MAN! What I see in this tale of Hatsune Miku is that the SF fans get the last laugh. Holographs work, and they work now, not in 1000 years.

And I think R2D2's horizontal hold might have been on the fritz:

...because out holographs look a lot better than the ones they were predicting in 1977!

LEIA: Help me, Obiwan Kenobi, you're my only hope!

OBIWAN: Damnit, the quality on this is crap. Can't you adjust it?

LUKE: I dunno. Let me have a go. (Kneels beside Artoo and starts fiddling)

R2D2: Beep! Squaaaaaw! Weeeedle ... wooosh ...awwwwwh.

LUKE: Does that look any better? I can't see it from here.

OBIWAN: Try adjusting the vertical hold.

LUKE: Okay, gimme a second here...

LEIA: I said, help me, Obiwan Kenobi, dadblast it, you're my only hope!"

LUKE: What's she talking about?

OBIWAN: She said something about some secret plans. I wasn't listening, I was trying to figure out why the playback's such crap. Any joy with the vertical hold?

R2D2: SQUAAAAAK! Weeble-beeble tooleoodleoodle ... (Subtitled into English: "Forget the goddamned playback quality and listen to the message, you brainless apes!")

See what I mean?! There's one in the eye for the guys who like to pooh-pooh SF

True Blood on the cover of the Rolling Stone

2010-08-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

I'm probably not the only one that didn't find the recent teen-vampire romance movies either attractive or entertaining. Those vampires were just too vanilla. Too designer sculpted to be appealing to an audience of adolescents.

Okay, so here's the180-degree flip of the compass: the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, with three hot bods and a bucket of blood. That's Anna Paquin (from X-Men), her fiance Stephen Moyer (with the strategically placed hand), and co-star Alexander Skarsgard.

Right. Why didn't we think of this before? You get Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas and Winona Ryder in a studio, lay down half a dozen garbage bags -- those big orange ones, big enough to pack half the garden after you've been busy with the weed whackers and chainsaws), and two buckets of blood, and you chuck the buckets over them.

Uh huh. Notice how none of the blood got on Anna's makeup, or in her hair? Now, if we could only figure out how to chuck two (or three) buckets of blood all over Brad, Antoni and Winona, and keep it out of their hair, and off their faces...

Want more on this? Indulge yourself right here.

I have one more question to ask. Who cleans the floor when the session's finished and the rest of the crew have gone home?

And speaking of Paul Gross --

2010-07-29T19:18:00.001-07:00

And speaking of Paul Gross (which I was in my last post where I said my farewells to Canadian character actor Maury Chaykin), the man is back and looking terrific in a Canadian comedy-western called Gunless.

I stand no chance of seeing this movie, because as a low budget Canadian family comedy it won't play the theaters downunder, it won't be on TV here, it won't find its way into the Quickflix (local version of Netflix) catalog, and Amazon refuses to ship an American DVD to an Aussie address. Which is also why I don't have a copy of Buried on Sunday ... but have seen it on VHS a looooong time ago.

I could have a bit of a rant here about the unavailability of "lesser" movies in Aus. Or I could have a bit of a rant about the way American viewers are dissing the movie for not being a Hollywood style blockbuster ... as if a movie can be made on a teensy-weensy Canadian sized budget and come out looking like a Hollywood monster ... wake up, people!!

Or I could just run some pix of Paul Gross looking terrific, and hope to one day be able to see the movie! Um ... all things being equal, I choose the lesser of all those weevils. So, enjoy the pix, folks!

Goodbye, Maury

2010-07-29T18:41:00.000-07:00

If your only interest in movies is for hot bods and sexy action, you're probably going to say, "Maury who?" But if you appreciate great performances from rock-solid character actors, you'll more than likely have known Maury Chaykin since Dances With Wolves, and that's a loooong time ago. Or maybe you saw him in several Canadian movies he made with Paul Gross (including, but not limited to the wonderful Buried on Sunday). Or perhaps you saw him as the XXXL outsized Goa'ould on Stargate SG-1, who departed the Earth with a wheelie-suitcase of cupcakes! Or you might recall him in Mystery Alaska, with Russell Crowe. He made a career out of being out-sized and trading on not being physically beautiful!

Yes, you have him now! Wonderful actor who could make you laugh or chill you (for example, in Cold Comfort, also with Paul gross). He's a character actor, and a Canadian, of extraordinary ability...

Maurie Chaykin died in a Toronto hospital last Tuesday. He'd been suffering from kidney problems. He was 61. Here's the full story, if you can somehow endure the stupid, intrusive, aggravating interface at CinemaBlend.com. And here is Maury's IMDB page ... what a list of credits!

Goodbye, Maury. We'll miss you.

Ewan McGregor talks about playing gay

2010-07-25T18:50:00.000-07:00

With the indie I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS languishing -- tough to find a distributor for such an out-n-out gay movie -- it's good to hear Ewan McGregor talk openly about playing gay characters. Which he does quite often, and enjoys doing...

This feature appeared online in OUT a few months ago ... and as you probably know, I've been working so hard, so long, I haven't had the chance to post much. So ... belatedly ... here's Ewan: Filthy and Gorgeous -- Ewan McGregor comes clean.

Makes interesting reading, well worth the click other there, trust me! Ewan McGregor has become quite the gay icon in the last decade and a half or so. Which is pretty good going for a straight guy --! Here's a very small quote which, for me, says it all:

“I’m always interested in playing different people, in different situations,” he says, sitting bolt upright, suddenly serious and eyeing the Pacific Ocean stretching below us. “It doesn’t matter to me whether someone is in love with a man or a woman. I find the idea of love and romance interesting. I’m a sucker for it. I like playing someone who’s falling in love because I like the sensation of it.” He pauses to give Syd [his dog] an affectionate pat. “People do extraordinary things when they’re falling in love.” http://out.com/detail.asp?id=26508

Chris Hemsworth -- the thunder god cometh, 2011!

2010-06-13T01:20:00.000-07:00

The Mighty Thor was my favorite comic when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, so 'tis with baited breath that I await his reincarnation as a Big Screen hero -- but wait!

There's evidence to suggest that he'll re reincarnated on May 20, 2011 in 3D!! The short version of this story is that a fan snapped a photo on the LA set of the movie, where Kenneth Branagh is directing Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins and a stellar cast ... and there in the snapshot is a 3D camera rig!

(See the whole story here: http://screenrant.com/thor-3d-idris-elba-heimdall-mikee-53609/)

So some fantastic things come out of this: it's a monster movie ... it's more than likely going to be in 3D (yippee!) and it has some fantabulous actors, and a Shakespearean director...

But what about the star? What face are they putting on the thunder god himself?

Does anyone here remember me posting about this over a year ago? Click here for the original post ... and at that point we were wondering who was going to be Thor, and I remember mooting Brad Pit with the Achilles look.

I must be psychic.

They couldn't get Brad, but by golly, they got themselves a lad that's got something of the lookalike about him ... a lad by the name of Chris Hemsworth, who's a very new face to the movie screen. I saw him fleetingly as Jim Kirk's father in Star Trek ...

And here's the rub, boys and girls: Chris Hemsworth is another Aussie lad! Add his name to the list including Hugh Jackman, Russel Crowe (and yes, I know he was born in New Zealand, but he became an Aussie a short time ago), Eric Banna, Sam Worthington ...! "Aussies Take Hollywood By Storm," I believe is the term.

Here's a bit more about Chris Hemsworth ...

Robert Downey Jr. -- bisexual, or not?

2010-06-11T16:56:00.000-07:00

Robert Downey Jr. the luscious Mr. Ironman himself ... is he bisexual, or isn't he? Well, it depends on who you talk to! By all accounts, he outed himself in an interview where he described himself as "an eccentric bisexual." But lately, he's been saying that all this was part of a "manufactured" personality, or character, going back to the days when he was reinventing himself.

Well ... hmmm. Okay. But try using using your Sherlock Holmesian powers of observation (in other words, OBSERVE as well as SEEING ... you thought that was a joke in Without a Clue, right? Wrong!! Arthur Conan Doyle wrote this in A Scandal in Bohemia -- they borrowed it for the movie) when you watch Robert Downey Jr. movies...

And you will see, if you actually trouble to look, his body language.

Body language tells a whole lot of truths about us that our tongues and the minds that drive them are probably trying to hide. It's in the gestures, the way we use our hands (and feet!!), the way we choose to wear our hair, facial expressions, the way we toss our heads...

AG's verdict? Robert wasn't kidding, the first time around, but now hi career is going into orbit, and IRON MAN is his big ticket -- and IRON MAN is a Marvel movie, and Marvel has just been bought (holy crap, Batdude!) by DISNEY!!!!

Therefore, 'tis time for Robert Downey Jr. to reinvent himself all over again, damnit, and be BON. Which is an acronym for Boring Old Normal.

If you LISTEN to the dialog in the first IRON MAN movie, there's gay and bi throwaway lines alllll over the place. Not so in the second, which was done under the threat (or promise) of a Disney hand on the tiller. (I find myself wondering how Disney will affect the overall integrity of the Marvel product. Yeee-ouch.

Here's the rub: Robert Downey Jr. could have eventually have been a gay icon, if Disney hadn't bought Marvel. Well ... rats.

Brendan Fraser: a hair raising story in pictures

2010-06-10T19:39:00.000-07:00

Brendan Fraser ... the Hair Raising Story! And yes, I know -- we all know! -- that Brendan has "hair issues," meaning he's losing it and experimenting with transplants and toupees and whatnot. But ... here's my point:

If you're going to wear a wig (and people have been doing this for thousands of years. The ancient Egyptians used to shave their heads and then wear wigs!) then, why not have luxurious locks? Why have a Bart Simpson Special??? Then again, maybe Brendan's a Major Fan or Bart, in which case opting for the "look" with your do might be the way to go!

Me? I still daydream about George.

...and what's not to daydream about. Brendan Fraser was never more gorgeous than right here, when you used to see him swinging on the sides of buses! Well, not George, actually, but the posters of George.

In lieu of the real thing, I guess most of us will make do with the posters, right? So here's my point. If you're going to be bewigged, why not have a real beauty?

...rather than the Bart Simpson Special. Hmmm.

Happy Birthday, Johnny Depp!

2010-06-09T18:43:00.000-07:00

Johnny Depp ... happy birthday, 2010! What more can you say? Here's a mighty good lookin' 47 years old, and you'd have to say the man is showing the rest of us how to age gracefully:

A few years are accumulating, but Johnny Depp is going to be one of the lucky ones -- he has the bones and the hair and the eyes to carry the extra years and look as gorgeous as ever. Or more. He ought to write a book, tell how he does it!

So, happy birthday, man -- way to go...

Sam Worthington and Mad Max 4 ... wowzer!

2010-06-08T16:56:00.001-07:00

Mad Max ... Sam Worthington ... say them in the same breath and then indulge yourself in a pleasant little shiver. Oooooooh, yes!

I know, I know, I've been silent as the tomb on this blog for more than a year, but my life went berserk. Crazy. Insane. It's only now that I can start to think about posting here again ... and what should come along right at the crucial moment? Try this:

June 9, on the Perth Now website:

Mad Max to hit road again, Sam Worthington tipped for lead

Here's the teaser for the feature, and a link to get you through to the rest of it:

THIRTY years after the original, Mad Max 4: Fury Road will kickstart the local movie industry - with WA star Sam Worthington tipped for the lead role.

THE original Mad Max put the Australian film industry on the map and launched the career of one of our most recognised actors, Mel Gibson.

Thirty years on and Mad Max 4: Fury Road is about to restart the local movie industry, being filmed entirely in Sydney and Outback NSW.

The Daily Telegraph reports that work on the film will start immediately, injecting tens of millions of dollars into the economy and creating more than 500 jobs.

Here's your link to the rest!

If you're wondering why this would show up on Perth Now ... well, after AVATAR and TERMINATOR 4 you might be assuming that Sam Worthington is an American star. Not true. He was born in England and came out to Aus -- Western Australia, the capital of which is Perth! -- as a wee little kid.

Having been too busy to blog for a loooong time, I've missed blogging about Iron Man and Avatar and Inkheart, and so much more. But you knew I'd be back, and -- better late than never, here I am. I'm going to be playing catch-up for ages. It's going to be all kinds of fun...

So, let's have some more Sam Worthington pictures before I leave you for today...

David Tennant finds out how to make John Barrowman faint...!

2009-07-27T18:08:00.000-07:00

Seriously! You think AG's joking? Now, would I do that to you? Well ... not this time. Check this out...!

There you go ... and you thought I was joking? Sheesh.

More soon, guys, I promise. I've been working way too hard lately, and have been neglecting this blog, and my gay book blog, too. One of the things that's been taking time has been hanging out on the GLBT Bookshelf, too ... but who could resist that?! Have you see it yet? No? In that case, you need to find out what you're missing: GLBT Bookshelf -- go there now!

2009-07-18T23:25:00.001-07:00

For the first time in several months, I actually have the time to post something here ... I can't believe all the great things I've had to let slide on by, because working doesn't leave any time for blogging. But this, I have to share with you. Dishy John Barrowman joins La Cage, right? And the result ...!

Stargate - Congratulations!

2009-04-15T17:56:00.000-07:00

Congrats are in order to the entire Stargate crew. TheMGM newsletter was just delivered, with these words:

We are pleased to announce that the Stargate franchise is nominated for 22 LEO Awards. In addition, executive producers Brad Wright and Robert Cooper will be receiving the Outstanding Achievement Award at the ceremony.

...and here's the ones you've been waiting for:

Best Lead Performance by a Male in a Feature Length Drama: Michael Shanks – Stargate: Continuum

Best Lead Performance by a Female in a Feature Length Drama: Amanda Tapping – Stargate: Continuum

Best Dramatic Series: Stargate Atlantis (Joseph Mallozzi, Paul Mullie, Brad Wright, Robert Cooper, Carl Binder, Martin Gero, Alan McCullough, John Smith - Producers)

Best Lead Performance by a Female in a Dramatic Series: Jewel Staite - Stargate Atlantis – “Tracker”

Best Lead Performance by a Male in a Dramatic Series: David Hewlett - Stargate Atlantis – “The Shrine”

Now, that's cool!

Going separate ways

2009-04-13T18:24:00.000-07:00

It's official, and it's all over the Internet today:

MEL Gibson's wife, Robyn, has filed for divorce from the Aussie actor after 28 years of marriage, citing irreconcilable differences.

Robyn Gibson lodged divorce documents in the Los Angeles Superior Court, the Associated Press reports.

Robyn Gibson has requested joint custody of the couple's youngest son, Tom, who turns 10 tomorrow. The couple's six other children are over the age of 18.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25331608-661,00.html
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Today/Entertainment/2009/04/13/9100141.html
http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1609146/story.jhtml
...and so on, and on, and on!

Not much you can add to that. It's been a long haul, but the couple have been separated for the last couple of years. One imagines, Mel's beliefs (being a staunch Catholic, which Robyn isn't, and holding some pretty whacked-out idea regarding the Jewish race, which Robyn doesn't share) would drive a wedge between them.

I've always been fascinated by Robyn Gibson, because she's a South Australian lass, like self. In fact, she was the friend of the daughter of the guy who used to do a lot of printing for me, about 30 years ago! I used to get "Mel Gibson stories" from my printer, back in the Days of Yore when very few people outside South Australia knew who the hell Mel Gibson was!

This is the second time recently that Robyn has been in the news, and it was sad last time, too:

THE family of Hollywood star Mel Gibson has made a sad journey to Adelaide - to farewell the father of his wife, Robyn Moore.
Bill Moore, 85, died peacefully on October 10, at Ashford Hospital.
The funeral was held at the Mawson Chapel, Centennial Park yesterday.
It is believed Gibson, 51, did not make the journey from the US with his wife and children for the service.
Bill is survived by his wife Nancye, children Susan, Robyn and Michael, and 12 grandchildren -- including Gibson and Moore's seven children -- and one great grandchild.
Gibson met Robyn, a dental nurse, in Adelaide in the late 1970s, soon after filming the first instalment of Mad Max.
The pair were housemates, who became best friends, then eventually lovers. They dated for six years, then married in 1980.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22591253-5006023,00.html

Now, let's go back to happier days, when the world (and certainly mel, Robyn and Aricia!) were all a hell of a lot younger...

Ewan McGregor: Happy Birthday 2009!

2009-03-31T23:48:00.000-07:00

Is it really possible that Ewan McGregor is 38 years old today?! Good lord ... AG takes a moment out and looks at the calendar ... is it. Woah. Where does time go?

Seems like only yesterday we were watching the new Obiwan Kenobi. And Brassed Off! -- which has to be my favorite of Ewan McGregor's movies, and that's saying a lot, because he's made some great ones.

Here's a bit of trivia for you: he's short sighted. Like yours truly! You might recall the serious eyeglasses you saw in The Long Way Round ... no joke. Those are the real deal. (He's also one of those guys who looks just as dishy with the spectacles on. Like Johnny Depp, for a start.)

So -- Happy Birthday, Man! Many more of 'em!

And now, shut up and paste in the eye candy, AG. I hear you growling, so ...

Christopher Lambert: Happy Birthday 2009!

2009-03-29T21:18:00.001-07:00

And it's a big, loud HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Christopher Lambert, who turns 52 today! Can you believe that? It only seems like yesterday that I was drooling -- uh, watching, uh -- well, yes, all right, drooling my way through Greystoke. Never mind Highlander!

I have some fantastic memories surrounding Christopher Lambert, whose movies don't seem to get a lot of publicity downunder, so it's easy to miss them. One of my favorites is the off-the-wall comedy he did with Christopher Loyd, Why me? I laughed and laughed. Love the scene with the piano...

It's astonishing to go over to CL's page at IMDb and check out the amazing list of credits he's assembled. I have one monster wish: to see Vercingetorix. Not likely to happen, I know, but I can wish...

So -- hey, happy birthday, man! And now, who's for some eye candy?

A word or two from your host: heeeeer's AG!

2009-03-28T00:02:00.001-07:00

And an editorial note here ... thanks gazillions to Jade (who is the cover artist for DreamCraft and Mel Keegan) for the spanking new header for this blog! I think it looks amazing, and it also reflects where most visitors are coming from, and what they want when they get here!

In fact, you might be interested to know a few stats on this here blog, since there's over 100 posts up now, and visitors from every part of the world are browsing through as if it were a magazine ... which I suppose it is, really!

About 40% of all visitors follow a link or an image or a Google search of some description (blog, web or image) for ... Johnny Depp!
Johnny Depp's tattoos are the most popular single feature on the blog!
Followed a close second by Viggo's tattoos -- and then by Viggo himself.
Next up, folks follow links and threads and wind up here on the trail of Elijah Wood...
And about equal numbers of people are looking for Elijah Wood and Christian Bale; and finding it here!
Next, James Spader, without or without the long hair (but searches and visitor "came from" links show a definite preference for "with").
And Richard Dean Anderson is right up there with James Spader, Christian Bale and Elijah Wood, in terms of how many visitors are looking, and searching.

After that -- well, it's a free-for-all, with an absolute gran-bag of everything on the blog.

You'll have noticed the "Link Within" widgets ... I added this service about two weeks ago, and it really has added value to the blog. Visitors like it, and many wind up browsing from topic to topic ... a few have stayed for an hour!

I'm not so sure about the "Snapshots" feature, though. I know it's popular on a lot of sites (like Live Journal and (Wordpress) but I'm not totally "sold" on how it works here.

But I have checked out my Statcounter stats and made a note of what visitors are downloading as "keepers." Guys: you're sussed ... ie., I know what you like! Therefore, I can "keep it coming." And let's be honest, there is never a shortage of stuff to babble about!

Many thanks to all who have supported the blog with a click or two on whatever interesting advertising has come along. I appreciate it!

The next thing I want to add to the site here is a Movie Shoppe. Stay tuned...

Viggo Mortensen -- being Good

2009-03-27T22:57:00.000-07:00

As a kind of post script to the last entry in this odd journal, I'm going to talk about Viggo again for a couple of minutes, and his new movie, Good.

I was over at YouTube, getting the trailer to plug in here, and couldn't help noticing that there's a bit of a furore brewing up over there. Most of it is about Nazis, Germans, Jews, Israelis, Palestinians and so forth -- and I really don't want to get into that ... I'm not qualified, honestly! There's people who know 100 times what I know, about all those subjects, and they're out there on the web, whanging it out all the time: they've said everything, fifty times each. Nothing left for me to add, and if I did, I'd either get it wrong or get everyone steamed.

But one thing on the discussion about the movie, Good, that seemed (to me) to be silly enough to be worth a post here is this:

A fair few people say they're "bothered" be the fact that Viggo and Jason Isaacs are playing the parts of Germans, using English accents. Apparently these viewers would have preferred to hear Viggo and Jason speaking with German accents.

Hunh?! Here's the problem. We hear German accents when German people speak English. But in Good, all the characters are German, speaking German, as German native speakers, in Germany.

No way in the world would you hear German accents! Think of it like this: the whole movie has been translated out of German into English. You just wouldn't, shoudn't, couldn't, hear an accent like Max von Sydow speaking English! (And incidentally, I could listen to Max von Sydow all night.)

Making a movie about Germans speaking German in Germany, they only had two choices: 1) have everyone speak German and subtitle it; or, 2) have everyone speak English that sounds as perfect to the ear as proper German would sound to native German speakers.

Now, the question of "should Viggo be speaking with an English accent?" comes up ... and it's pretty plain to me that since all the characters are German etc. etc., then you have no choice but the stabilize the accent used in the movie to ONE accent. Jason Isaacs is English -- so is everyone else in the cast ... I know, because I bothered to go to the movie's IMDb page and check! So, since they're all English barring Viggo ... if someone wanted to have Viggo speaking with his American accent or his Danish accent, they'd have to coach everybody else in the movie to speak with the same accent as him ... that's a huge amount of work, to make 10 people match up with one!

Why bother, when Viggo already "does" a gorgeous English accent (Aragorn), so he can mesh with the rest of the cast without problems.

This seems to be such a weird thing to me. It's just about the last reason I could think of for people saying, "I'm bothered by an American speaking in an English accent, playing a German." I mean -- duh. It's so obvious, I shouldn't have to be saying this!

Eye candy now, anyone...?!

Viggo Mortensen -- trilingual is terrific!

2009-03-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

I'm in a Viggo mood today ... because he's been on the box promoting GOOD, which is just one of his new movies.

So, what the hey? Let's have some Viggo stuff today.

Let's start with the GOOD trailer ... which is a marvelous piece of filmmaking in itself. Listen to that accent! Viggo is "doing" the gorgeous British accent we heard in Lord of the Rings. Aragorn speaks! Have a listen to this...

This is going to be such a good movie. Next ... since we're on the subject of
accents and languages, you have to check this out:

Being bilingual would be fantastic. I always wanted to speak a second language. Viggo, it turns out, speaks at least three. He did CAPITAN ALATRISTE in the Spanish language:

And yes, I have a copy of ALATRISTE ... in Spanish ... with English subtitles, thank heavens, or I wouldn't get one word in three of what's being said!

Lastly ... well, let's get naughty. Chuckle! Enjoy:

Digital eye candy ... Final Fantasy. Woah!

2009-03-24T22:28:00.001-07:00

When's the last time you took a long, hard, serious look at anime, and digitally animated movies, not to mention the games that either spin off them or spawn them?

You might not have looked in a while ... I haven't. I just did. I'm fairly speechless here (and for AG that's saying a lot).

What can I tell you? There's going to come a time when human actors are going to be out of work! What they're doing with animation these days is aready enough to blow you away ... you know what this is going to be like in another 10 years?!

Take a squizz at this ... and think of Storm Comstantine's Wraethu while you're squizzing ... because both these characters are guys -- namely Sephiroth and Cloud, villain and hero, from Final Fantasy.

What can you say? Johnny Quest was never like this!

Christian Bale must be blushing (again) when Auntie Beeb does an oopsie

2009-03-24T17:52:00.000-07:00

You just have to chuckle, but I can also imagine some red faces -- and Christian Bale must be among them. Check this out:

BBC Breakfast has avoided censure by Ofcom after it quickly apologised for broadcasting an unedited version of Christian Bale's foul-mouthed tirade on a film set.

On 16 February, the BBC One breakfast news show featured part of the sound-clip in which Bale is heard losing his temper with a member of the film crew.

After introducing the Bale item, the word "fucking" was heard almost immediately.

The clip was stopped and the presenters apologised stating that the clip should have been edited.
The Ofcom code states that "most offensive language must not be broadcast before the watershed".

The BBC explained to Ofcom that two versions of the Bale rant item existed in its production database – one containing the most offensive language and one with this language bleeped out for transmission.

Apparently the original unedited version was played by mistake because the two different versions were not clearly labelled.

Ofcom said it considered the matter adequately resolved in view of the broadcaster's swift action to stop the clip and apologise for offence to viewers.
(From http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=43399&c=1)

Nice one, Auntie.

The problem is, Christian Bale might never live this down!

Along the same lines ... but it's a very, very safe bet that it's a clever publicity stunt ... is Gary Oldman's absolutely hilarious tirade ostensibly aimed at a bunch of TV or magazine journalists who appear to be pursuing/harassing him. It's all about a movie that must need some advertising -- because this is just about the best kind of advertising it could get. God knows, even I want to see it now, to figure out what the brewhaha is about! Have a butcher's at this:

I laughed and laughed. And I'm honestly curious to know what the heck The Perfect Sleep is all about. Good one, guys: the advertising worked ... and you got the Internet to spread it "virally" for nothing, right?! Glad to help.

Richard Dean Anderson: Macgyver rides again, big sceen style!

2009-03-24T00:40:00.000-07:00

Richard Dean Anderson fans: you want good news to wind up today's business?! It couldn't be better, and AG is wearing a mile-wide smile!

Cast an eye upon this, from Reuters:

"It will take more than twine, bubble gum and a pencil to do it, but the science-oriented adventure series "MacGyver" is being developed as a feature film for New Line.

"MacGyver" ran from 1985 to 1992 on ABC. Richard Dean Anderson, later of "Stargate: Atlantis" and "SG-1" fame, starred as an incredibly resourceful secret agent for the Phoenix Foundation who frequently would escape from dangerous situations with ingenious and lightning-quick engineering trickery.

Two telefilms starring Anderson aired in the years after the show's cancellation. The character eventually achieved enough cultural recognition to become a reference for anyone attempting to jury-rig a solution out of household items. "Saturday Night Live" took the concept to the next level with its "MacGruber" spoofs starring Will Forte.

Raffaella De Laurentiis, daughter of veteran producer Dino De Laurentiis, is producing the movie through her Raffaella Prods. along with Martha De Laurentiis and series creator Lee Zlotoff. Dino De Laurentiis is executive producing.

No writer has been hired. The studio hopes to find a script that acknowledges the concept's pop-culture profile yet still makes for a serious and fun adventure movie.

"We think we're a stick of chewing gum, a paper clip and an A-list writer away from a global franchise," said New Line's Richard Brener."
http://www.reuters.com/article/filmNews/idUSTRE52F0PX20090316

And if that isn't reason enough to hop up and do a small dance for the sheer joy of it, what is? It's also MORE than reason enough for some eye candy!

Wedding Bells for James Spader and William Shatner

2009-03-23T23:00:00.000-07:00

This, from the Windy City Times ... and don't you just love this? Bromance. Has to be the cutest term dreamed up for the "zone between the clear-cut genders" since someone in the UK coined "omnisexual" ...

From the “Whatdya-Call-It-If-2-Guys-Really-Really-Like-Each-Other-But-Ahem-Aren't-Gay?” file, the Chicago Tribune ( Dec. 16 ) and the Chicago Sun-Times ( Dec. 31 ) more-or-less jointly announce the “bromance.” The Trib lists the TV shows Scrubs with J.O. & Turk, House with House & Wilson, Heroes with Hiro & Ando, Entourage with Vince & Eric and How I Met Your Mother with Ted & Barney, while the Sun-Times had a story on Boston Legal with Denny & Alan. All of these pairs would be married if they were gay ( and it was legal ) ; they are thisclose. The Sun-Times even shows a pic of Denny ( William Shatner ) and Alan ( James Spader ) , who DO get married for plot reasons waltzing around at the wedding: Spader's the lead. Some movies with this theme are in the offing: there's going to be an awful lot of dialog about how one guy can tell another guy he loves him without being, you know, uhhh, gay.
http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=20689

Want more? This is great ... and so's this!

Kewel. I mean, this is cute as all get out, and so without further ado, let's get into the pictures!

Brad Pitt: give the man some credit -- he's an actor!

2009-03-23T00:24:00.000-07:00

There's a curious little piece running on The Times of India, and it just leaves you shaking your head. I've heard of some dumb things, but this just about takes the cake.

Pitt out of film for his good looks
Hollywood superstar Brad Pitt is out of upcoming movie State of Play as the director on hindsight felt he was too good-looking to play the role.

Pitt was originally to star in the big-screen thriller as a journalist but the actor quit during pre-production, citing concerns with the script, contactmusic.com reports. Gladiator star Russell Crowe was roped in as a late replacement for Brad to star opposite actor Ben Affleck's character of a Congressman in the film. Director Kevin McDonald is convinced that Crowe's rough features are more suited to the role. "In a way, I was lucky it didn't work out with Brad. The relationship between the journalist and the politician was meant to be between somebody who feels inferior, who's a bit of a schlump, who kind of can't get a girlfriend, and somebody he's looking up to and admires his polished politician friend," he said. "That is not the dynamic of a Brad Pitt. He's not looking up to anyone thinking 'Oh, I wish I could have your girlfriend'," he added.

Here's the rub, boys and girls: THE MAN IS AN ACTOR. He isn't actually Achilles. Nor doe she race about machine-gunning people. Nor was born at age 90 and grow younger throughout life. All these parts are ACTING.

And he's not supposed to be able to act the part of someone who looks up to others and envies their girl friends?!

I would venture to say that if Mr. Pitt decided to play the part of a blind leper, he'd do just fine. Being an ACTOR. Professionally. Meaning, "getting paid to do the job and being bloody good at it."

Anyway, Russell Crowe will also be just fine, but -- and Russ, we love you, man! --it's just the principle of the thing, you know?!

Okay, AG: off the soapbox and on with the eye candy. Here we go:

Matthew Broderick: happy birthday 2009

2009-03-21T17:02:00.001-07:00

And it's happy birthday to Matthew Broderick, who turns 46 today (same age as AG). Is it really 25 years since Ladyhawke?! Good gods, it is. I mean ... that's a quarter of a century! I was a mere child when I sat in the dark, eating popcorn and watching Rutger Hauer turn into a wolf, and Matthew Broderick picking locks --! Marvelous memories, which I relive every time I play the DVD. Here's a bit of trivia for you: did you know, Ladyhawke was only his fourth credited role? True.

And Matthew Broderick went on to do loads of great projects, not just as an actor (for instance, Godzilla), but also as a voice artist (ex., The Lion King). In fact, I'm remembering all the way back to Wargames, and wishing I had a DVD of that one. Note to self: get one!

So -- happy birthday, man! Have a great one. (And now, shut up AG, and paste in the pictures -- sheesh, you think people visit this page because they want to listen to you babble on?)

Gary Oldman ... happy birthday, 2009!

2009-03-21T16:45:00.001-07:00

It's also happy birthday to Gary Oldman today ... and I can't believe he's 51. Mind you, I've enjoyed his movies for a couple of decades now, so I guess he must be!

His roles are so diverse, you're just left blinking. He has a gift for accents that is quite the equal of Johnny Depp ... in fact, I don't think I've heard Gary Oldman sound the same in two consecutive movies! My favorites from among his movies? It's almost impossible to choose. Immortal Beloved, Air Force One, The Dark Knight, The Fifth Element, Lost in Space ... the Harry Potter movies ...?! Like I said, utterly impossible to choose.

So I'm not going to choose -- I'm just going to nominate Gary Oldman as one of my most favorite actors, wish him Happy Birthday, and get on with the eye candy ... which is the whole reason you're on this page anyway, right? (In other words, shut up already, AG, and paste in the pictures. Right.)

Timothy Dalton: happy birthday 2009!

2009-03-21T16:24:00.000-07:00

It's Happy Birthday, 007 today -- wish birthday wishes going to my personal favorite of the James Bonds. Don't get me wrong -- I like them all! But Timothy Dalton is my favorite. Why? I think it's because I actually believed James Bond as a real person in his two movies. The other actors were consistently "tongue in cheek," and the movies had the quality of satire or even spoof. In the Timothy Dalton movies, though, you had a greater sense of reality, and I guess I liked that!

It also doesn't hurt that Tim Dalton had devilish good looks, a gorgeous voice ... and great legs! Would you believe he's 64 years young today?! (Good grief, that would make AG...)

Want some eye candy now? You bet. Here goes:

Elijah Wood ... as Iggy Pop?!

2009-03-20T17:27:00.000-07:00

Would you believe Elijah Wood starring as Iggy Pop?! I mean, the guy's an incredibly talented actor, but this is the reverse of casting Viggo Mortensen in the title role of Heidi ... you get what I mean. A complete mis-match:

They couldn't put enough makeup on Elijah Wood to make him look remotely like Iggy Pop. Some wise-cracker suggested casting Robert Downey Jr. in the part (maybe because Robert Downey can and will wear so much makeup, they might stand half a chance of getting a remote likeness...

...and I mean, it would have to be an utterly REMOTE likeness.

But as per angelic Elijah Wood...???

Pull the other leg, man ... it has bells on.

Speaking of Elijah Wood, there's a cute little piece running on Softpedia:

Actor Elijah Wood, aka Frodo from "Lord on The Rings" trilogy confessed he is the subject of a gay site, made by some online jokers.

During a TV show he was invited, Elija told the host that some pranksters have started a website named elijahwoodisveryverygay, where they present fake photos with him that are 'proving' the 'Lord Of The Rings' star is homosexual.

He told US chat show host Conan O'Brien: "There's one that's called elijahwoodisveryverygay, which is actually a personal favorite of mine, it's absolutely hilarious.

"It's this kind of joke website that maintains that they have proof that I am very, very gay in various photographs - photographic evidence of me holding hands with a male".

The actor also revealed he was approached many times by fans who wanted to give him "fake" pictures of himself in compromising situations with his male co-stars.

He explained: "They want to create moments that they didn't get to see in the film, of these characters in sexual congress.

I was actually at a film festival once and this fan came up with a gift, I open the gift in front of all these people that I'm talking to and it happens to be a photo from one of these websites of me and Dominic Monaghan making sweet love".

Now, that wasn't a nice thing to do to the actor! (However ... I've seen photos (and they are not faked; they're on one of the leading PR image sites, where the dopyright owners charge an arm and a leg for reproduction royalties ... fake photos don't sit on those sites) of Dominic Monaghan frenching -- or getting frenched by?? -- Viggo. So ... who knows where imagination and wishful thinking ends, and where the truth begins?! But I really do think fans ought to have more sense and more manners than to hand the actor fake photos -- called digital maniupulations -- in public ... or anywhere else, for that matter. Guys -- get real here. Nuff said.)

Bruce Willis: happy birthday, 2009!

2009-03-19T20:34:00.000-07:00

What else can you say? Happy birthday, man! You have us some of the greatest motion picture thrills and laughs ... have a great 54th, and a great 2009!

Johnny Depp: vampires rock!

2009-03-19T19:50:00.000-07:00

Is anyone here old enough to remember Dark Shadows? Yeah, that videotaped soapie that was made about 40 years ago, and was still running circa 1980 or so ... where the "twist" that made the soap opera "go" was ... vampires!

Thank heavens I'm not the only one old enough to remember Dark Shadows! And I've always had a weakness for vampires. (In fact, a contender for my favorite of the Mel Keegan novels is Nocturne, which is a vampire novel -- the "spin" on this one, making it different and fantastic, is that the vampires are gay. Haven't heard of this one? Have a taste for gay vampires?! You need to get over to MK's page, and check it out!)

Anyway -- kick me occasionally and get me back on track -- you can't fail to have noticed that anything and everything from the 1960s and 1970s is being revamped (pun intended) into major motion pictures, so, given that vampires are huge business just now --

How surprised are you likely to be if I tell you, Dark Shadows looks like coming back as (!!) a major motion picture...

Starring Johnny Depp!

And there's a rumor about Tim Burton directing it!

Now, Dark Shadows made its TV debut when I was about four, so I was utterly oblivious. But by the time I was about 16 or so, it was screening on daytime TV in Australia, and I remember it vividly, from the 1980 era...

Soap opera, right? With vampires ... and unless memory is playing tricks, I remember were wolves, voodoo, zombies, and time travelers. And they managed to do this inside of a real, genuine soapie template. In other words, it was monstrous fun. (Pun intended -- again!)

Now, add in Johnny Depp, and Tim Burton to direct this movie, and ... where do you advance book tickets?! The original soapie show taped well over 1000 episodes, so it was a huge success. A major movie --? It's a no-brainer. The only mystery is why it hasn't been done before...

And speaking of Johnny Depp, here's a very good interview, at Contact Music.

To Liam Neeson and family: our deepest sympathies

2009-03-19T19:37:00.000-07:00

To Liam Neeson and his family: our deepest sympathy. The tragedy is incalculable. Natasha Richardson was not merely a beautiful woman ... she was that rare thing, a beautiful human being. The Neeson family must be utterly in shock, and not surprisingly, Liam has decided to put the career on hiatus...

Some very gentle, sympathetic and informative features are running right now:
http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUKTRE52I7S120090319 plus
http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b105172_brilliant_natasha_richardson_remembered.html and Neeson's Hometown Ballymena Shows Support

...What can you possibly say at a time like this? You wonder why. You wonder what you're supposed to learn from this. Heaven only knows.

Liam and family: our sympathies are with you.

Tony Curtis: hey, our generation didn't invent "gorgeous" --!

2009-03-14T22:38:00.000-07:00

You know, these days with your superstars Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt and Will Smith, gorgeous George Clooney and angelic Orlando Bloom, that Viking archetype, Viggo Mortensen, and then the Aussie contingent -- Hugh Jackman (pant), Eric Bana (gasp), Russell Crowe (oooh), and the drop-dead gorgeous Brits such as Jude Law and Christian Bale and so on, and ON ... this generation tends to have the impression that we've not only cornered the market on gorgeous, but -- we invented it.

Not true. Believe me ... I've been around for quite long enough to remember a lot of the stratospheric names that today' twinkies, teens and tweens associate with senior citizens, gray hair and walking sticks --!

Fact, kids: time catches up with us all eventually (except for me; I'm immortal; so long as I stay the hell away from mirrors). And you might be knocked flat with a feather to see some of yesteryear's superstars in their hay days.

What brought this on? Well, AG is currently doing laps of the room without touching the floor (quite a stunt, when you work without a net) because Tony Curtis has just published a new book! Yep, a new one, American Prince ...!

Here's one of the first reviews: http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2008-10-13-tony-curtis_N.htm (it's also a good one, on USA Today).

I have GOT to get this book:

You know, Tony Curtis was one of the first actors to dare to do gay scenes. They were done for Spartacus about 1960. He played a slave owned by Lawrence Oliver's character (a Roman general), and boy, did the general fancy his, uh, property. They actually had the guts to film this -- but it was promptly cut out of the movie. Now, the film wasn't pro-gay ... in fact, the slave (TC) so far objected to being a general's sex object that he ran away and ended up executed ... but keep in mind, this was 1960, and these scenes were actually filmed. It blows your mind, when you think about it:

This was yonks before, for example, Death In Venice -- and DinV was so blurry-edged, so toned down, unless you know what you're looking at, half the time there's nothing TO look at! Which shows you the courage it took to give the scenes in Spartacus the proper treatment ... and then there's TC's incredible drag act, in Some Like it Hot. He and Jack Lemon did the full works -- and the drop-dead line in the movie goes to Joe E. Brown, right before the end credits roll. Gotta love it ... I mean, seriously, a flaming gay romance, and this was done in the 1950s?!

Anyway, Tony Curtis's new book is top of my shopping list, which is why I'm on the subject of TC today. And if you thought we invented "gorgeous," scroll down a bit further...

Scuse me while I go get a napkin ... I appear to be drooling here. Just a bit.

Michael Caine: Happy birthday, 2009

2009-03-14T00:19:00.001-07:00

Would you believe it? It's Happy Birthday to Sir Michael Caine today ... and he's 76 years young. I've been watching Michael Caine since I was old enough to be allowed to see Zulu, which he made in the mid-1960s, when he was something like 32 years old -- um, about the time I was born, I suppose. My favorites among his movies are (still!) Zulu, and Ashanti, and Deathtrap. Those three, I can watch any time -- and thank gods for DVDs.

(You know AG by now: love the part in Deathtrap with Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve in a clinch, with a kiss! In fact, the film company apparently called this the "$10 million kiss," because they reckon that when the movie was made, this was how much revenue the bad publicity cost them ... thank gods things have changed! Sorry about the quality of the capture at left: best one I could find.)

Here's his page on IMDB ... check out that filmography. I'm impressed.

Twits, nuisances, lawbreakers: where does Twitter draw the line?!

2009-03-12T18:23:00.000-07:00

Good gods, who'd be a celebrity? Look at what you're up against these days:

For four months, 19,637 people followed Ewan McGregor’s every move via the microblogging service. Or at least they thought they did. But come on people –Moulin Rouge 2?
While there are many fake celebrity accounts on Twitter, including those purporting to be Tina Fey and Hank Paulson, most are obviously bogus.

Ewan McGregor’s tweets, by contrast, seemed realistic, although there were signs that made some suspicious, including a post expressing a desire to make a Moulin Rouge sequel – something no real actor would contemplate.

The authenticity of the fake Ewan McGregor started to bug the real actor, who yesterday told The Guardian his people had requested that Twitter take down the posts.
Twitter said it would investigate but did not immediately relent.

Here's the story: Twitter takes down fake Ewan McGregor account

I mean, jeepers creepers, you can be Ewan McGregor -- THE Ewan, superstar and all-around great guy, and some BOOBY can do this to you, and Twitter in its infinite wisdom responds to your agent bvy saying they'll investigate.

Say what?!! Can we say, "Get that gibberish off your internet page before you get sued for your shirt?!"

Same sort of twaddle happened to David Tennant, too (oddly enough, I was just talking about this yesterday).

It's actually come to the point where any Tom, Dick or Mary could open a Twitter account, go out there and pretend to be -- oh, HM Queen, President Obama, the Pope, and Twitter would somewhat reluctantly INVESTIGATE when they're TOLD to remove the bogus twaddle!!

Is it just me, or is this getting past a joke? Like I said, who'd be a celebrity? Sheesh.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie: Brangelina to the rescue!

2009-03-11T17:23:00.000-07:00

Some of the nicest stories are posted by users, not reporters. Journalists do this crap--work for a living and they pretty soon get jaded and some of them can't tell where humor crosses the line and turns snide. So in pro journalism work you often get a lot of wannabe humor that goes over like the proverbial lead balloon ... way too sarcastic for its own good. But when a user of a public news site posts a story, you don't have that jaded quality. You get a real news item, from a person who was there, saw it, did it, and is keen to share.

And here's a beaut: Brad Pitt’s N.O. housing efforts have Lower 9th Ward in the pink. It's a great little piece about how Brad and Ange are building 100 houses in one of the most heavily punished parts of New Orleans. I mean -- seriously cool. "Nice factor:" 11 on the scale of 1-10.

Go there -- read it and have a smile.

And while we're on the subject of the heavenly duo, let's have some more reasons to smile right here:

David Tennant: what's next?

2009-03-10T21:44:00.000-07:00

Since delicious David Tennant is leaving Doctor Who after the upcoming spate of movies, I was wondering what he's going to be doing next. Well ... I'd been hoping for something major, but on thinking it over, the boy probably needs a rest after how many seasons of the show, plus holiday specials, plus movies ...?

So a gueststar appearance in Taggart is probably a good way to go:

Doctor, there's been a murder
DOCTOR Who star David Tennant is being lined up for a role in the crime drama Taggart.

The West Lothian actor, who recently quit his role as the Time Lord, had auditioned for the show 16 times without landing a part in his pre-Doctor Who days.

"I've been encouraging our producer to offer him a part as a doctor," Taggart star Colin McCredie was reported as saying.

I must watch out for that!

And I should imagine everyone out there is aware of the fake twittering going on, where some lunatic woman presends to be David, goes out there and saying outrageous things ... and people believe her!!! If it's news to you, click here ... but he warned, it really is stoopid.

Jack Harkness: immortalized in comics

2009-03-09T19:42:00.000-07:00

Comics?! Yep -- comics.

In fact, this is really cool. First, I happen to like comics; second, modern comics have incredibly high production values. Third, John and Carole Barrowman are writing this one. Fourth, John has made "his face" available to the character, so you get very, VERY nice artwork...

See this: Captain Jack And The Selkie’ Comic Strip First Look, for a sneak preview and the story behind the story!

Looks like being a blast, and it's great that John's sister Carole has gotten into this. (She has her own webpage, incidentally.) It's so great that Torchwood is a massive success -- it's even gone well in the US, which surprised the heck out of me. US networks are really picky about coarse language, sexual references, nudity and whave have you, and I'd expected them to handle Torchwood with tongs! In fact I think they did to a degree. I read a quote from John Barrowman where he says the next season (he could mean the third or even fourth, depending on how old the quote is, and this is something I can't say) of the show will be toned down. He said words along the lines of "We won't be swearing or doing anything close to the bone, so the show won't have to be heavily edited for US audiences." That's not a verbatim quote, but it's darned close ... and I can't find my way back to the original page for love or money!

Okay -- now the part you've been waiting for. The eye candy! Shut up and paste the pictures in, Aricia....

Rutger Hauer ... ice up a cold one. Wow!

2009-03-06T23:15:00.000-08:00

You know, this commercial didn't run in Australia ... if it did, believe me, I'd remember it. I always knew Rutger Hauer did a commercial for beer way back in the Blade Runner days, but I never saw it.

I just heard that's he's done the voice track for a butter commercial (!) and while I was hunting for a copy (no joy yet) I stumbled over the Guinness -- Pure Genius commercial:

Hapy, happy, joy, joy! Check this out:

You know, that was worth waiting thirty years for!

And while we're here -- how about some goodies you might not have seen:

The Ultimate Movie, starring Depp, Jolie, Smith and Knightly (plus Pitt and Winslet, optional...)

2009-03-06T16:17:00.000-08:00

Here's the challenge: design your own ultimate movie ... cast whoever you like in it. Who'd be your choice? We all of us can dream, I guess --!

In fact this scenario has been run as a poll in the UK, ant (not to anyone's astonishment, here's the result: "Ahead of Friday's 85 million pound, EuroMillions lottery draw, the poll has revealed that if finances come flowing, nine out of ten Brits would invest to make their own movie. While the hollywood's most bankable star Will Smith would be cast as the supporting actor with "Bend it like Beckham" star Keira Knightley would give him company for the role.One in four Britons would make a thriller, while one in five opted for a romantic comedy but they unitedly voted for London as their favourite destination to shoot the film."

And you have to admit, this wouldbe a heck of a film. It's a romantic comedy-thriller starring Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Will Smith and Keira Knightly.

Good lord ... I'd go see that one myself!

The production and promotion pictures might look something like this...

What a movie this would be!

If I was nuts enough, I'd say: let's run a competition ... take the above pictures and work out a story that connects them all. Like ...

The lady scuba diver and the lady who organizes a historical re-enactment society get together with a gypsy guy and an actor; the diving lady moonlights as a model, and the actor is trying to run for office. They all live in the same apartment block in NYC, and somebody on their floor gets murdered, and the murder weapon gets all of them tagged as the murderer/ess ... they have to prove themselves innocent, before the detectives (played by Brad Pitt and Kate Winslet) slap on the cuffs and march 'em all away.

Hey, that's not too bad at all!

The boy from Barcelona is back!

2009-03-05T19:00:00.000-08:00

The news popped up just an hour ago (at the time of this writing) and I'm still in seventh heaven ... Antonio Banderas just signed to be in the new Woody Allen movie!

(Find the whole story on Entertainment and Showbiz h ere...)

Right now no one has much idea what the movie is going to be about, but if it's a Woody Allen comedy starring Antonio Banderas ... how could you go wrong?! I've been following Antonio for a looong time; and I think I've been a fan of Woody Allen even longer. Since Bananas, in fact! And that goes back so far, Sylvester Stallone's part in it was uncredited! (Congratulations, AG, you just told everybody in the world how old you are...)

Anyway, that's the big news today, so break out the bubbly! Any excuse to pop a cork, right? And since we're in a mood to party, let's get on with the goodies...

Viggo, Orlando -- and that other cute dude from TROY...

2009-03-04T22:49:00.000-08:00

I've got some reading for you today -- good, meaty stuff ... if you're in a Viggo mood, and I am. There's a really good feature article you need to get your teeth into, so after you've grabbed the eye candy below, go over here:

Mr Good Bard

The feature is running on the Sydney Morning Herald -- the Australian paper, so you might not have seen it. And staying in Aus, and staying with things sorta-kinda Lord of the Rings -ish, here's another beaut:

Eric Bana and Orlando Bloom show their revhead side

...that one is on the Daily Telegraph, and allow me to give you the hook: "THEY'RE two of Hollywood's leading hoons and Orlando Bloom and Eric Bana hung out to talk the secret men's business of custom motorcycles in Sydney yesterday."

Can you imagine working at a bike shop in Sydney, and looking up over the keyboard, or out the window, and Eric Bana and Orlando Bloom just walked in??? You'd have to drop your Pepsi stright into the computer. I mean, you'd have no choice, would you?!

Anway -- there's some reading for you; also food for thought. And now the eye candy!

Star Trek was never like this ... or was it? Come to think of it --

2009-03-02T22:13:00.000-08:00

Who's in a Star Trek mood? Oh, come on now ... hands up! That's better.

Because I found some goodies and if you have a few minutes and no regard for your ribs, play these:

and as if that wasn't enough ...

'Scuze I while I go mop my eyes and tape my ribs!

Gyllenhall and Carrey -- Jake and Jim, together again for the first time!

2009-03-02T18:55:00.000-08:00

Here it is, right from the horse's mouth -- or at least right out of the pages of Variety (so you can believe it when I tell you that two of the hottest gay stars who aren't actually gay -- or at least won't 'fess up about it -- are paired ... together again for the first time ... in A MUSICAL:

Carrey, Gyllenhaal do 'Yankees'

Yip yip yip yip --

Seriously. Now, Damned Yankees is a peach of a project to begin with: there's this really, really nice guy, Boyd (married, but I don't recall him having kids. Anyone??) who's in love ... with a baseball team. Not the GUYS on the team, y'understand, but the team itself. And they only know how to do one thing: lose. So this really nice guy makes a pact with the devil hisself ... to transform himself into Slugger Joe, who's going to save the team, get them to the World Series, an' all. Things get complex when the contract's deadline comes up smack in the middle of said World Series (which is actually a misnomer because nobody else in the world plays in it, only the USA). And Old Nick plays the trump card: he reincarnates a femme fatal by the name of Lola to go "up there" on his business, seduce the Boyd (aka Slugger) and make sure the pact is forever. Add songs and dances, and you've got it.

Now, Jake Gyllenhaal is going to play Boyd ... okay; he's rather young for the part. Boyd was supposed to be maybe 15 or 20 years older. And Jim Carrey (what a surprise!) is going to play the Lord of Darkness who knows exactly how to seduce Boyd --

And I'm not going to say another word about that. Except --

Who's playing Lola?!

Bean and Bowie ... woah!

2009-02-27T23:04:00.000-08:00

If you've got a fancy for Sean Bean (oh, yeah...) you're going to love this little feature which just popped up on Press Association:

Sean Bean has revealed he used to dress up like David Bowie.

The Lord Of The Rings star, who will turn 50 in April, told The Times he used to glam up like the 70s rock star when he was a teenager.

Sheffield-born Sean said: "I wore similar outfits to Bowie. The truth is, I was a clone. I dyed my hair red, wore jumpsuits and big stack heels decorated with stars.

"People in Sheffield thought I was a poof. A weirdo. Which encouraged me to do it even more. I risked getting my head kicked in for a while, but then glam rock became more mainstream and dyeing your hair, wearing make-up and dressing up became more acceptable."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5jcQOhcUgNU098d_AcLO8Q9oBsBOg
...woah, that would have been something to see!

I have to admit to being very partial to Mr. Bean ... whose name was originally spelled Shaun, but he decided to change it to "Seen Bean" (as he jokes about it) because the more traditional spelling is quirkier ... which suits the movies.

It's Sean's birthday in April (he's 50! Good golly, doesn't time fly?) and we'll have to have a Special Event on the blog here when the big day comes around.

Eye candy now? What -- you insist?! Okay:

Men in tights: booboos in the Green Wood

2009-02-26T18:10:00.000-08:00

Circulating right now is a king-sized case of "WFT" is going on now?!

This tipped me off to something weird happening:

Russell Crowe's Robin Hood to woo Cate Blanchett as Maid Marian: Will he finally be reunited with Oscars as well?

I mean, it's good news: "Because Cate Blanchett and her playwright husband Andrew Upton are co-artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company she has scaled back her film commitments to barely one a year. That makes the news that Blanchett is about to sign up to play Maid Marian opposite Russell Crowe's Robin Hood even more intriguing."

Great news, in fact, but --

The last time I looked, Russell Crowe was going to be playing the SHERIFF to Christian Bale's Robin. I admit, it's a few months since I looked, but ... this was it. Well, as of 02-28-09, try this one on for size:

The above is a screen-cap from the important part of the 2009 Robin Hood page at IMDB.
Christian Bale is nowhere in sight, and Russell will be playing (OMIGOD!!) both Robin and the Sheriff --

He's going to hunt himself down! He's going to promise to hang and/or behead himself! He's going to menace Maid Marian for being in love with him! He's going to betray himself to Prince John!

Pardon me, folks, but I know the story. I grew up with Robin Hood. He might have been Errol Flynn, or Michael Praed, or Sean Connery, or Jason Connery, or Richard Green, or Cary Elwes, or even (god help us) Kevin Costner. But I grew up with the legend, the mythos, the story, the whole bucket-of-bolts, and I can tell you for a fact, Robin Hood is not, nor was he ever, the Sheriff of Nottingham.

So --WTF?! And here's where I throw up my hands (not to mention my brekkie) and paste in some eye candy instead. So, what the hey, here goes -- Errol, Cary and Michael, in order:

Stay tooned for further developments...

Tom Hanks: a tale of typewriters and anti-matter!

2009-02-25T19:49:00.000-08:00

Two delicious items just popped up a little while ago -- Tom Hanks is in the news again, which makes sense when you remember his new movie, Angels and Demons, will be opening soon, and the publicity campaign has to get into high gear.

Turns out, Tom Hanks has an "obsession" for collecting stuff -- but not any kind of stuff. He has a passion for typewriters!

This snippet is running on One India: "Tom Hank's obsession costs him a fortune. The Hollywood superstar has revealed that he has a weakness for typewriters and ends up paying a fortunes for the shipping charges of his goods from all across the globe. The Oscar winner has more than a 100 manual, portable typewriters. "(I collect them) from the 1930s until they stopped making them," Contactmusic quoted him as saying. "I bought a $5 typewriter from Australia that cost me $85 to ship," he said The actor confesses that his hobby some times burns his pockets badly." (http://living.oneindia.in/insync/2009/tom-hanks-typewriter-190209.html)

Good golly, I remember my first four or five typewriters. As much as I love computers, I wish still had my portable word-basher-outer. Nobody makes them these days -- and I guess the big problem is, even if you did have one, you couldn't get the ribbons for them. Rats.

From one end of the tech spectrum to the other, lets leapfrom from India to Europe ... where Tom has been signed to (get this) restart the Large Hadron Collider!

This is actually pretty darned cool, if you like your high-tech stuff: "Tom Hanks, he of Forrest Gump fame, has been signed up to restart the Large Hadron Collider. The announcement is sure to finally garner some positive press for the presumably highly stressed scientists at Cern, who are busy trying to get the LHC fully functional. As bizarre as the link-up sounds, there's some method in the madness behind getting Mr Hanks on board. The Hollywood star is about to embark on a tour-de-force PR campaign for his latest film Angels And Demons. The movie, based on the book by Dan Brown, features Cern as part of the plot that involves the stealing of some anti-matter from the particle physics laboratory. Speaking about his involvement with the LHC, Hanks told journalists: "I found out today that if I stuck my hand into the particle accelerator, it would disappear, and antimatter would be created." (http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/future-tech/tom-hanks-roped-in-to-restart-hadron-collider-533467)

Please don't, Tom! Shove something else in there -- like, your lunch, or the pencil sharpener, or someone's mobile phone that won't stop going off!

Eye candy? What's that you say? Eye candy, please?! Okay, gimme a reason why not...

Get ready for STAR WARS: THE MUSICAL!

2009-02-24T19:35:00.000-08:00

Well ... not really. Actually, I do believe it's going to be something like a star-warsie version of the Middle Earth Symphony which toured far and wide: massive screens, a full-size symphony orchestra, on-stage effects, what have you.

In fact, there was also a Doctor Who take on this same thing, Music and Monsters ... I have it on DVD, and it works extremely well.

Anyway, if this is your thing (and it could be great) see the full story right here: LucasFilm Says "Star Wars: A Musical Journey" Bound For U.S. ... the story popped up on Rolling Stone a few hours ago. Remember, you heard it here first. Well -- actually second. I guess Rolling Stone was first...

And while we're on the subject of Star Wars, there is something you HAVE to see. Have you got about fifteen minutes, and a beer, and no fear for your ribs??? Because you're going to break several laughing. See this: The STAR WARS ASCIImation ... there's a whacko programmer in Kiwi country who has waaaaay too much time on his hands. It's big fun. Enjoy.

And how's about some eye candy while we're here?!

And before anybody says a word ... I was a Han Solo freak. The Han Solo freak is still hiding inside, waiting for a chance to escape...

Oscar and Hugh: not such an odd couple

2009-02-23T20:16:00.000-08:00

With the Oscars 2009 show being a piece of history now (in other words, it was yesterday...) folks downunder are wondering what response was gleaned by Hugh Jackman -- who's only the second Aussie ever invited to host the show.

Turns out, Hugh's been gathering mixed reviews -- and I shouldn't think it bothers him one jot, because while critics appear to have NOT likes him, audiences loved him. And that's what a performer cares about. (Which is probably also how he's feeling about Australia, which has been, and still is, absolutely delighting home-grown viewers all over our rural zones, even though city slicker crictics in the hearts of major metropolises like New York, London and so forth didn't reckon it was worth the celluloid it was printed on! Go figure. Me? I reckon it's audiences that count. God knows, they're the ones who didn't get free bloody tickets!)

Here's some interesting reading on the topic:

Will Hugh Jackman get Oscars call back? Was he Billy Crystal?
Liveblogging the Oscars: Stopping the Show
Kudos!!!!

Kewl, eh, what?!

So let's have some pictures while we're here!

Now, that's what I call candy for the visual cortex.

Way to go, Sean!

2009-02-23T19:58:00.000-08:00

It's history: the Oscars 2009 ... and what history!

Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire;
Best Actor: Sean Penn, for Milk;
Best Actress: Kate Winslet.
Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger;

...and this is so cosmopolitan a decision on all fronts, I'm surprised and delighted. Slumdog is a picture about Indian people in India. Sean Pen's character of Harvey Milk was not merely 'out' gay, but the gay rights activist to end 'em all ... in fact, he's become a gay icon. Kate Winslet is English; Heath Ledger was Australian.

Here's the complete list: http://oscar.com/oscarnight/winners/

And here is Sean Penn's clip, speech and all:

Verrrrrry, verrrry nice! Here's AG standing up and applauding!

And the winners are --

2009-02-22T19:50:00.000-08:00

Yep, it's Oscar's Day -- can't say "Oscar's Night," because down here in Aus, the show goes on (and on and on and on) all day, due to the time difference!

As I write this, the great news is that Heath Ledger has just been honored with the AFI award:

See the winners come up in real time here, if you can't park yourself in front of a TV screen for about six hours during the working day -- and who can?

From my perspective, this is the big news at the Oscars -- why? Because it's the last chance Heath Ledger will have to "win the big one." And he richly deserved it. Brad Pitt and others will have many, many other chances, but this one was critically important for Heath, his family, and his fans.

Nice one, kid. Real nice.

Paul Bettany, transported to the fantasy landscape

2009-02-21T19:24:00.000-08:00

Today I'm in a Paul Bettany mood for some reason -- not that you need a reason, right? And I have to say, I'm really looking forward to Inkheart. I like this actor so much; he reminds me a little bit of what the late Michael Gothard might have been, if he'd been born maybe thirty years later and given a chance! (As it was, Mike Gothard was so far out of his time, it's a wonder he left his mark on the world at all -- but he did, with projects like Arthur of the Britons. Speaking of which -- you DO know it's been out on DVD for about a year, don't you??)

But I digress, and to apologise, let's have a really lovely Paul Bettany pic:

Paul has done his fair share of creepy stuff, so it's going to be so nice to see him once again looking gorgeous, as he did in -- oh, for instance, A Knight's Tale, with Heath Leger and company...

Got a soft spot for Geoff Chaucer. I have. And not just because he has one of the nicest posteriors in motion pictures. Anyway --

Inkheart is going to be a major treat, and if you want to know more, there's a good interview with Brendan Fraser running right now, on Movies OnLine.

On the other hand, if you prefer to go into a movie "blind," then don't read that page!! However, I'm going to paste in the movie poster right here, because it's a beaut:

This one, I'm going to see on the big screen, whether or not my significant other wants to come along or not. Paul Bettany and Brendan Fraser in the same movie? How could you not love this one?

TEN MINUTES LATER, here's a bloody annoying PS to this post:

I just went to Greater Union (dot-blasted-com) to find out when Inkheart opens. Now, bear in mind it already had its world premier in Berlin back in January (because it's from the novel by Cornelia Funke, makes sense to have the premier in Germany). But they're not opening it in Australia until April!! Can you believe this? Think I read it wrong? See this:

http://www.greaterunion.com.au/movies/7166/Inkheart.htm -- that's Inkheart's page at the aforementioned Greater-flaming-union -- complete with auto playing trailer, and opening date. April 2. Well ... shoot. AG is under-impressed.

Heath Ledger: Speak out for him someone, since his voice is silent now!

2009-02-19T17:51:00.000-08:00

Two items hit me squarely between the eyeballs this morning, and Heath Ledger is central to both of them. The first is great ... the second is a "WFT" piece for which somebody, somewhere, has to say something -- and if it has to be me, then so be it.

Let's go to the first piece ... first. This is lovely:

HEATH Ledger's love of chess has been set in stone at a park on Perth's Swan River, where he played as a child.

Ledger's family have given the City of Melville, in Perth's southern suburbs, a polished concrete and marble sculpture in memory of the late actor, comprising two chess boards and a yin and yang symbol.

Ledger's mother Sally Bell said the family had chosen the site at Heathcote Reserve, overlooking the Swan River, because her son had cared about the environment and spent much of his youth in the Applecross area.

Ms Bell said he often walked to the park with his friends. "He truly loved it there," she said.

There's loads more to read on this story -- get the whole thing here:
Heath Ledger's memory set in stone in park along Perth's Swan River

Is that lovely, or what? Nice one. [Reaches for a kleenex]

And then, at the exact same moment, this pops up ... and it just can't be kosher:

FYI: Heath Ledger was a badass chess player.

After sodomizing Jake Gyllenhaal (so hot) and hamming it up as a psycho, mass-murdering clown (hella artsy), Heath overdosed on sleeping pills (so in right now) and bit the dust — a fucking brilliant career move. Immortalized forever as a tortured actor on the cusp of glory, the former junior chess champion joined the VIP list of early-death superstars: James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Bruce Lee ... and now our favorite, 28-year-old Australian man candy.

Forget that he was the most convincing clown ever, licking his caked-up lips in the freakiest of snakelike fashions (after all, making even the burliest bro piss his pants doesn’t make a man). It’s what happens after — hundreds of tribute videos from love-struck fans, thousands of Facebookers in Joker paint, millions made in box-office bills — that truly grants Ledger a rank among legends.

As for other Oscar nominees? He’s the checkmate from hell.

That's the whole, idiotic piece, in entirety! There is no more. The blogger has said her piece (I assume it's a female -- the first name is Allie):
Best Posthumous Achievement - The Dark Knight

...Say, what? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Don't know about you guys, but I find it muy offensive. This post went up at University of California, San Diego, on The Guardian online magazine.

AG was the first to comment and left this:
Am I the only one who finds this offensive ... or just the first one to find it?! Someone has to be the first ... and if there was a "report this" button, I'd be clicking it. Is this drivel supposed to be a joke? If so, it's in extremely bad taste. Doesn't anyone at The Guardian edit items before they're posted?!

If you're even half as PO'd as I am, skeedaddle over there and leave words for somebody called Allie Cuerdo: http://www.ucsdguardian.org/hiatus/best_posthumous_achievement-1.1486561 in the hopes that this sort of twaddle can be nipped in the bud.

Go on! Heath can't speak out for himself any longer, so someone's going to have to do it!

Let's have some pictures, now, to sweeten this ... because AG's Album isn't supposed to be full of aggro!

The Thunder God commeth ... in 2011!

2009-02-18T20:25:00.000-08:00

In fact, Viggo has been in a couple more newsie items that might have blown right by you, because they're not (yet) Hollywoodish.

The big news first: Marvel considers a real-life Thunder God ... woah! You do know, don't you, that the next massive, monster movie of a comic book legend is The Mighty Thor ...?! If you didn't know -- consider yourself informed! And in fact they're casting the part now. They're looking at Brad Pitt, Viggo Mortensen, Gerard Butler, and James Preston Rogers ...

Ouch! Okay, well... James Preston Rogers has six-foot-six, has the muscles and the hair, but he's a pro wrestler. Thor won't be a simple acting part, and there's more to it than looking right. Unless he has the voice and the presence, you'll wind up with a movie that tanks, even though the actor looked right:

Oooooh, how I could wish Viggo would land the part, but as much as we love ya, Viggo, I have to admit, I don't think you're tall enough or big enough, muscles-wise. Thor was ... a big, big boy.

Gerard Butler could do the part. He has the presence, the stature, and some extremely nice, uh, muscles...

But if I had to choose? If I really, seriously, had to choose? Well ... I grew up with the comic books, and I have to tell you, folks, Brad Pitt's Achilles looked more like Thor than Thor did. And Brad can act. And Brad has a good voice. And Brad is close to the top of the Hollywood A-list.

Viggo Mortensen -- being Aragorn. Again!

2009-02-18T19:39:00.001-08:00

I'm in a Viggo mood today, and there's plenty to be in a mood about! You probably know that The Hobbit is in serious, serious preproduction. I blogged a little about it here, when Dominic Monaghan was talking about the very real possibility that he, Billy and Elijah would be in the movie. (It was Elijah Wood's birthday at the time...)

I still don't know how those talks have turned out, but I can tell you this much: now the company is talking to Viggo about coming back to be Aragorn again!! Here's the news: Viggo Mortensen talks the Hobbit. This is so cool, it gives you shivers.

Now, the problem is that Aragorn wasn't in the book of The Hobbit -- any more than Pip, Merry and Frodo were in it. However, if Aragorn was 87 y.o. in Two Towers, then he sure as heck was there, temporally speaking at least, when the story of The Hobbit was actually happening. So was Legloas. And Elrond and Arwen.

So potentially you could have Aragorn and Legolas, and Elrond and Arwen, at least as "guest stars" along the way. You could also have Gimli, but remember that he'd never met Aragorn and Legolas before the Council of Elrond.

James McAvoy is being whispered about as the actor to play the younger Bilbo. (I blogged about this too, right here. With succulent pictures.)

You could even write in a part for Saruman, who was still sane at the time. Send for Christopher Lee ... and if Ian McKellen doesn't play Gandalf, not only will I not blog about it, I won't even go and see it!

Same goes for Orlando Bloom, who looks far more gorgeous now than he did 10 years ago, and if they get anybody else in the cosmos to play Legolas ...!!!

Which leaves Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan and Elijah Wood kind of "dangling" ... and I just can't figure out how their characters are going to get into the picture.

Anyway, while I'm in a Viggo mood, let's have some pictures...

I'm STILL in a Viggo mood, so I'll be posting again shortly, with more news...

John Barrowman and -- who? So that's Matt Smith!

2009-02-17T16:59:00.000-08:00

I did a post a couple of days ago, "Captain Jack meets Doctor #1 -- the new Doctor." And quite a few people said to me, "Who the heck is Matt Smith?

Well, the simple answer is, "a very young English actor with a quirky, unique face, who has a connection to the GLBTI community..." He's still in his twenties, but there's much about him that suggests to me that he could actually "be" the Doctor...

We've lurched over the hurdle of the Doctor being identified as an older man -- he's immortal, he regenerates, there's no reason he shouldn't regenerate into a young face. Peter Davison was the first young Doctor, and he promptly laid to rest the arguments that he was too young. Paul McGann was the next young Doctor ... gods help me, I liked him a lot as the Doctor, but I know a lot of people didn't. Well ... anyway.

And now ... it gets interesting. I put the following to you, and I'm not going to say another word:

Actually, I will say another word or two after all: Woah, this is going to get intreresting! Jack Harkness became a gay icon in a single episode of Doctor Who, even before Torchwood came along, and, uh ... after that it was an absolute blast.

Angelina locked Brad out --??!! Actually...

2009-02-17T16:28:00.000-08:00

Angelina locked Brad out??!! What was she thinking?! Actually --

He locked himself out. Of the house, that it. Now, when you and I do this, we can always resort the the key hidden under the third geranium from the left, just behind the Japanese lamp, where the drainpipe's got that big rusty spot ... but then again, you and I don't live in Castle Brangelina, where the security makes Fort Knox look like Free Ticket Day at the Megaplex...

Here's the story: BRAD PITT Star locked out of own home, which popped up on Bild.com (in English, not German -- you're safe).

I'll tell you one thing: it's nice ... comforting, reassuring ... to know that Brad can still have the same kind of problems as mortals. I mean, memory lapses -- forget your remote control to get through the security system! (Razor wire, guard dogs, searchlights, electrified fences, robotized veloceraptors...) I feel a little bit better about being mortal now!

Captain Jack and #11 ... John Barrowman meets Matt Smith

2009-02-16T19:43:00.000-08:00

As everyone in this timeline has to know by now, David Tennant is turning in his Tardis keys at the end of the current season ... which means the Doctor is about to regenerate.

Is anyone out there old enough (come on, now, hands up, people: have courage!) to remember when Doctor #1 regenerated into #2?! Bill Hartnell turned into Pat Troughton. What, no takers??

Yo. My hand is going up. Fact is, there were some very good reasons to be there in the 1960s ... not that I had much choice about it, of course. My parents had made the decision ... or were taken by surprise. (When I appeared, it was probably more of a shock. I know: SHUT UP, AG, AND GET BACK TO JOHN BARROWMAN!!)

There's a very, very cute story running on The Daily Record right now. Let me quote you a little bit of it, and then you can click on over and read the whole thing (don't forget to come back here when you're done -- the eye candy is up later...)

JOHN BARROWMAN feels like he's cheated on David Tennant after meeting the new Doctor Who, Matt Smith.

Glaswegian-born John, 41, who plays Captain Jack Harkness in Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood, has become friends with fellow Scot David, who is quitting as the 10th Doctor at the end of the year.

But John, who is gay, hadn't met Matt until five minutes before our interview, and was clearly a bit giddy at the chance encounter.

He laughed: "I feel like I've had an affair against David because I've met the new guy. I liked him but, David, my heart is always with you."

John was in the BBC's London HQ to chat to me about his new variety show, Tonight's The Night, and met Matt in the press office.

John said: "He walked right past me and he and I sat and had a chat. He's got some big shoes to fill when David leaves, but he'll bring his own spin to Doctor Who.

"He's very handsome, very quirky but striking. I think he'll do very well."

There's a really good article following on from this, and here's your link: Exclusive: David Tennant is the best Doctor Who for me, says John Barrowman ... nice one!

And now, the aforementioned pictures, which is what you're here for anyway, right? Right. Here goes:

Woah! Nice one. Verrrrry nice one. Scots rock. (And I oughtta know, being one...)

So who's Matt Smith, and what's in store for us when he and Jack get onto the samde soudstage?? Click here to take a sneak peak...!

Cold steel: Iron Man and other armored legends

2009-02-15T16:13:00.000-08:00

Last couple of days, I've been re-reading some of the NARC books (which are my favorite gay SF of all time), and I got to thinking ... woah, if there was a NARC movie. I mean, it might never happen, but if it did, a team of designers would be working for six months to visualize, blueprint, and build, the NARC armor, right? What a blast it would be ... even trying to imaging the armor from these books is a thrill. Anyway --

Anyway -- all this got me thinking about Iron Man, and other armored heroes in the movies. Green Goblin (from Spiderman), Batman, and so on. And -- do you have about four minutes to spare? Because I found this roundup of armored heroes in the movies, and around the three minute mark, there's a great sequence showing how they got Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) into the suit. This is loads of fun:

Note to self: got to watch Iron Man tonight. One of my all-time favorites. What I loved about the movie was not just the fantastic effects -- and the armor! -- but also, Tony Stark is such a real human being, you believed him completely.