New Bettie Page/Bunny Yeager Photo Book

Hat Tip: Shutterbug

There is a new photobook from Rizzoli International due out this September, Bettie Page: Queen of the Curves.

The book features 250 images of Bettie Page taken by Bunny Yeager.  Some of the images are in color, others in black and white and come from Yeager's personal archive.  Many have never been seen before.

The book goes on sale September 23 and has a $50.00 cover price.

Warner Plans on Bringing Even More Dragons the the Big Screen

Hat Tip: Dark Horizons

Warner has just obtained the screen rights to the Dragonriders of Pern books written by Anne McCaffery.  In case you're wondering, that's a total of 22 books.


For those unfamiliar with the books, they involve a planet that periodically faces a space born threat as a result of a wondering planetoid that is home to "thread".  Thread is a spore-like organism capable of surviving in space that devours any organic material it comes in contact with.

The planet is colonized by space travelers (making this science fiction instead of fantasy).  The colonist engage in genetic modification of an indigenous species to create "Dragons" that can be used to combat the thread while falling through the atmosphere, preventing it from reaching the ground.


The dragons breath fire and can "go between" (a form of teleportation.)


I like the books and hope they are successfully translated to the big screen, but I'm not holding my breath.  Hollywood seems to have this mentality where everything has to be turned into an action movie blockbuster and the McCaffery stories really aren't "blockbuster" material.  The books center primarily on social interactions than anything else.  This suggest a need to concentrate on plot, not action.

Going the "blockbuster" route would probably result in a movie with lots of combat scenes with dragons fighting thread and not much else.  This would not do justice to the material.


Warner might be better served going the Game of Thrones route by turning the books into a television series.  A television series would involve more plot and character development which are the strengths of the books.  They really aren't "action" oriented.

Lord of the Rings Trilogy Blu-Ray 68% Off at Amazon (and others)

Hat Tip: Geeks are Sexy

Amazons Deal of the Day: 68% off on Lord of the Rings Trilogy Blu-Ray Set (Extended Edition).  You can pick this up today for $37.99 with free shipping.  It's usually $119.98.


Other Deals:

The complete Andy Griffith show on DVD is 75% off.
The Frasier complete DVD set is 63% off.
The complete Taxi DVD set is 62% off.
The complete Cheers DVD set is 70% off.

These deals run for a week.


Check Amazon's Featured Deals for more movies/t.v. shows.

WB Plans Seven Film "Arabian Nights" Franchise

Hat Tip: Dark Horizons


Warner Brothers is planning a seven-film franchise based on One Thousand and One Nights.


This does make a certain amount of sense.  The material is public domain and hasn't been used as source material recently.

The problem may lie in execution. 


The source material consists of multiple short stories.  Short stories don't always translate well to full-length motion pictures.  One short story doesn't provide enough material for an entire film.  Creating a full-length film either requires expanding the story (also known as "padding") or using multiple stories in the same film. 

Films with multiple stories, or anthologies, typically don't perform well at theaters.


Based on the number of films planned, it looks like WB has chosen the first approach, devoting each film to a single story.  This will result in a cohesive story-line for each film but will require the script-writer to come up with a great deal of original material for each film.

WB better have some creative writers on tap.

*Facepalm*

That was the only appropriate response after seeing this:


Will Ferrell and Adam McKay team up for Manimal movie


That produced a mental image of Will Ferrell morphing into an animal.  It was like a parody version of the Twilight series.  (Which has already been done, btw.)

I think this idea is a perfect illustration on why Hollywood has a problem.  Far too many movie decisions seem based on coming up with a way to justify special effects.

Best Rickroll Ever

For those of you not familiar with the term, Rickrolling refers to tricking someone into viewing this:



The fact that the song currently has 85 million hits should tell you how popular Rickrolling people has become.


This one might be the best one ever.

Someone at Bishop Fox (a digital security firm) has found a way to Rickroll Chromecast users.


The method has to do with the way the Chromecast devices works when it first connects to a network.or, more importantly, when reconnecting after losing its connection to that network or to the Internet.

The Chromecast device works like an unsecured wireless router when first connecting.  During this period it can be told to connect to any wireless network within its range.  The device can also be told to disconnect from the network to which it is currently connected using a wireless signal.


This means it is possible to tell a Chromecast device to disconnect from the owner's wireless router and connect to yours instead.  After doing this, you can tell it to show to whatever video you want the owner to see.

Including Rick Astley.

Now I Know Why I'm Bored With Hollywood

Hat Tip: PetaPixel


Why am I bored with Hollywood?

Far too many directors using the same shot every scene, no matter what the context.



Michael Bay - What is Bayhem? from Tony Zhou on Vimeo.


Not only does Hollywood have a lack of creativity when it comes to the content of movies, it lacks creativity when it comes to filming them.

Impressive Trailer for Chinese Animated Film Due in 2016

Hat Tip: Geek Tyrant


Viewing the trailer for the upcoming Master Jiang and the Six Kingdoms (scroll down to bottom of post to view) makes me wonder why American film companies can't come up with something that looks this interesting.

Personally, there have been few (if any) movies produced by Hollywood recently that have interested me enough to go through the effort of actually seeing them in a theater.  Certainly nothing that interested me enough to spend $10 or more to see.

Everything produced be Hollywood today seems to be produced by rote.  The American film industry seems to be content with just going through the motions, with little attempt to produce anything requiring actual creativity.


The last Hollywood produced animated film I watched was Frozen, and that one I waited until it was released on cable to watch.

I found myself predicting the plot in advance.  It's not a very creative film when you know what is going to happen 30 minutes in advance.  (Oh, look.  That must be the villain.  Oh, and the Prince is going to betray the Princess.)

It's a movie produced by formula.


I don't think you can say the same thing about the Chinese film.



I thought I'd update this post to include the trailer for Disney's new animated film: Big Hero 6




My immediate response "predictable".

Teen discovers danger and authorities refuse to believe him, so he rounds up his friends to deal with it himself.  That's the plot to The Blob.

Which is what the blow-up robot resembles. 

And they have to use the predictable "leak" jokes for the robot.  That looks like the old animate joke where a character gets shot repeatedly then drinks a lot of water.

This is what passes for creativity in modern Hollywood.

Clan of the Cave Bear Getting Remake Treatment by Lifetime

Hat Tip: Dark Horizons


According to Variety, Lifetime is looking into creating a series based on Jean Auel's series of books set in the neolithic period.  They have ordered a pilot being produced by Fox 21 and Lionsgate in association with Imagine Television and Allison Shearmur Productions.

That involves some very impressive talent.  (The list includes Ron Howard and Linda Woolverton.  Woolverton's resume includes work on Maleficent, Alice in Wonderland and The Lion King.)


Auel's 6 book series provides a large amount of source material to draw from.


Personally, I'm a bit surprised Hollywood hasn't touched Auel's work outside of the 1986 movie with Daryl Hannah as Ayla.

The fact that the movie wasn't well received might have something to do with the books not being touched before now.  (Auel's $40 Million lawsuit to stop any further use of the material may also have played a part.  Nothing says "radioactive" quite like a lawsuit by the material's author.)


As a side note, reading some of the 1986 movie reviews just reinforced the notion of just how clueless some movie critics can be.

There is one critic that criticized the decision to use a fictitious language instead of English.  The decision to have the actors speak English would have resulted in critics complaining about "lack of realism."

Probably from the same critic.

Then there is the lack of verbal linguistic ability assigned to the neanderthals in the novel.  Any attempt to portray this while using English would have resulted in the neanderthals sounding like Tonto from the Lone Ranger serials.

You can imagine how the critics would have responded to THAT.


Part of the problem for the 1986 film stems from the material itself.  The movie was fairly faithful to the book.  The producers of the Lifetime pilot are going to encounter the same limitations.

The Clan of the Cave Bear may just be a book that doesn't translate well on screen, be it t.v. or theater.


Just to have a little fun at Roger Ebert's expense.  He gave the 1986 movie 1.5 out of 4 stars.  He gave Anaconda 3.5   Anaconda is on my list of worse films aver made.  Bad plot.  Bad Acting.  Cliche after cliche.  Cheesy CG affects.  And the "snake" bears no relation to the real animal and breaks laws of physics.

This is what Ebert gave 3.5/4 stars.

Hollywood Is Scraping Bottom of Barrel With Dumbo Remake

Hat Tip: Cartoon Brew
(Original Story: Hollywood Reporter.)


I really hope this one is a hoax.

Disney is apparently planning to follow up on its success with the live action version of Sleeping Beauty (Maleficent) with a live action version of Dumbo.


Of all the Disney properties to recreate as a live action movie, they choose Dumbo?


The original version only works due to cartoon "physics".  A flying CG elephant with unbelievably big ears just isn't going to work the same.


It's also only 60  minutes long, requiring a certain amount of padding.  The padding will be a “unique family story that parallels Dumbo’s story."


That phrase alone is enough to give me nightmares.

Hollywood Struggles to Make Money This Year

Today, The Hollywood Reporter has an article that attempts to answer the question: "What's Behind Summer's Free Fall at the Multiple."


Entering the Fourth of July weekend, revenue for Hollywood movies was down 15% compared to last year. Revenue is down 19.3% exiting the weekend.

As The Hollywood Reporter points out, revenues are down across the board.  All types of movies are having difficulty making the type of money ther made in past years.


2014 looks to be the first year since 2001 that a Summer Blockbuster failed to reach the $300 Million mark domestically.  X-Men: Days of Future Past is this year's top revenue earner at $227 Million domestically.  Last year, Iron Man 3 earned over $400 Million.


Less expensive movies, including comedies and family oriented movies have also struggled this year.

Blended (Adam Sandler) and A Million Ways to Die in the West (Seth MacFarlane) both struggled to top $40 Million.  Adam Sandler's 2013 Grown Ups 2 grossed $133 Million and MacFarlane's 2012 Ted grossed over $200 Million.

Disney's Malifecent is the only family show to hit the $200 Million mark this year.  How to Train Your Dragon 2 only managed $140 Million.


So we know revenue is down across the board, but why?


Part of this is due to Hollywood.  Viewers get tired of seeing the same material regurgitated on a regular basis.  Hollywood's lack of originality may play a part in the lower revenues this year.


The primary problem, though, is probably the economy.

You don't hear much about this from the "main-stream" media, but the economy right now really isn't in great shape.


GDP shrank 2.9% the First Quarter this year.  A shrinking economy means people have less money to spend, and discretionary spending is always the first thing people cut back on.  That means less movie money.

The bad economic news has continued.  The June job numbers showed an increase of 288,000 jobs.

Great, right?

Not really.  The economy gained 750,000 Part Time Jobs and lost over 500,000 Full Time Jobs.  That shift from full-time to part-time accounts for the entire gain in the number of jobs.  There is no increase in the number of hours being worked and there may actually be a decrease in work hours (and wages).


I like to dump on Hollywood for lack of originality  (Really, another reboot?) but I don't think Hollywood itself is to blame for the disappointing revenue numbers this year.  They're the victims of a struggling economy.  It's just that the media refuses to report bad news when in comes to the economy right now.

Deal Alert: Large Selection of Movies on Sale at Amazon

Hat Tip: Geeks Are Sexy


I have Amazon on my checklist, somehow this one doesn't show up in my list.  Amazon's Spotlight Deal Today covers a large selection of DVD/Blu-Ray Movie Titles.  The list of covered titles is 231 pages long.  (Use the filter controls to limit the number of options shown at the same time.)

There is also a small selection of boxed sets on sale.


You can also click on "Spotlight Deals" in the upper part of the left column, then select "TV" to see all the deals currently available on television shows.

Oddly, the option to see the spotlight deals doesn't show up if you start by going to the main page and clicking on the deals link.