Yearly Archive: 2008

Fans around the world are eagerly counting down the days until Santa Claus comes bearing gifts. They also eagerly anticipate the annual Doctor Who Christmas Special, which debuts on the BBC Christmas Day.  No domestic airdate has been given for this or the four 2009 specials.

Reviews and commentary have started to sprout up on the web and here are some samples:
 
Digital Spy delivers ten spoilers for the Christmas special:

    1. The mysterious Cybershades can jump quite high.
    2. Neither the Doctor nor the Other Doctor recognizes each other. But the latter doesn’t remember much anyway.
    3. There are two words that the Doctor never refuses.
    4. The Other Doctor has a TARDIS – and it’s magnificent.
    5. For a while Rosita becomes the Doctor’s companion (but then you’ll know that already if you’ve read our interview with the lovely Velile Tshabalala).
    6. The script includes the customary line "what about the children?"
    7. At least one previous incarnation of the Doctor makes an appearance.
    8. Miss Hartigan (Dervla Kirwan) is a very special lady.
    9. The Other Doctor’s fobwatch is a very important clue.
    10. "I suppose ** *** ***, **** ***** ** *****."

Apparently, clips will allow fans to see previous Doctors, perhaps all of them.

They also report that the Doctor’s companion, Rosita, is a prostitute who is attacked by Cyberman and is rescued by the other Doctor (David Morrissey) before encountering Tennant’s Doctor.

The TARDIS apparently figures largely in the story and may well be the catalyst for the four 2009 specials.

Stephen Chow gave new life to The Green Hornet film when he signed on in September to both direct the feature adaptation and star opposite Seth Rogan as Kato. Chow will remain as the martial arts sidekick but will no longer direct according to Variety.  The usual “creative differences” was cited with producer Neal Moritz assuring all that a new helmer will be signed quickly so shooting can still being in Spring. 

Chow was working with a script written by Rogen and Evan Goldberg and the screenplay is said to remain but go through a polish whenever a new director is chosen.

Rogen will play Britt Reid, newspaper heir and secret crime fighter, as conceived by Fran Stryker in the 1930s. Most people today know the character from the one-season ABC series from the 1960s which propelled Bruce Lee to stardom.

Pairing the comedic Rogen with Chow (Kung Fu Hustle) seemed like movie magic and the June 25, 2010 release will no doubt be eagerly anticipated. 

No sooner did Buck Rogers get optioned for a feature film this summer than the rumors named Frank Miller as the director, something that everyone involved has denied until now.  The Hollywood Reporter and Variety both say Odd Lot Entertainment is close to signing Miller to adapt the comic strip to the screen.

Odd Lot hired Miller to direct The Spirit, which opens on Christmas Day and producer Deborah Del Prete let slip in October that Miller would move to the science fiction hero next. Odd Lot obtained the rights from Nu Image/Millennium, which has been holding the rights since the summer, obtained from the Dille Trust. The Trust is headed by John Flint Dille, a longtime friend of Miller’s, and he may have started the rumor at the time of the deal.

Miller will reportedly write and direct the adaptation which will likely follow his personal dark vision of dystopias.

Acclaimed for his work in comics on Daredevil and The Dark Knight Returns, his film work has been less well received starting with his work on RoboCop 2.  His Sin City was a major success and 300 was based on his Dark Horse graphic novel, although it was adapted by Zack Snyder.  Miller is making his solo debut on The Spirit, based on Will Eisner’s legendary comic strip.  Early reviews broke yesterday and have been uniformly negative.  This could well be the second straight super-hero misfire from Lionsgate, which delivered Punisher War Zone DOA earlier this month.

Buck Rogers was based on a 1928 novella, Armageddon 2419 AD by Philip Francis Nowlan which appeared in Amazing Stories. It quickly spawned a sequel and the stories caught the imagination of John F. Dille, president of the National Newspaper Service syndicate. He brought the feature to the newspapers as a comic strip in 1929, coming to own the property. America’s first SF comic strip, it was written by Nowlan with art by Dick Calkins. Through the years, the strip was graced with terrific art from the likes of Murphy Anderson and George Tuska, until it ended in 1967. The strip was revived in 1979 by artist Gray Morrow and writers Jim Lawrence and Cary Bates lasting until the strip’s ending in 1983.

Buck Rogers has appeared in comic books (with stunning Frank Frazetta art), serials (with Buster Crabbe), a four-times-a-week radio serial from 1932 through 1947; a 1950 half-hour television series and the 1979 NBC series (the horrible adaptation with Gil Gerard).

The Dille Trust under Flint Dille has repeatedly attempted to revive the character for modern audiences through Role Playing games, comics and media. All the attempts have yet to capture the fancy of today’s audiences.

Manga are temporarily in short supply around here, so the usual “Manga Friday” slot is being taken by a close cousin. (Think of this as just another wacky hijink, Patty Duke Show-style.) Instead of manga, I have two books for younger readers that came out earlier in 2008, one very clearly for girls, and the other more gender-neutral.

Chiggers
By Hope Larson
Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Ginee Seo Books, June 2008, $17.99 (hardcover) and $9.99 (paperback)

Chiggers is set at a summer camp, and the major characters are all tween girls. (If I’ve figured it out correctly, they’re all in eighth grade.) The viewpoint character is Abby – she’s the first one to arrive in her cabin, this year, and ends up a little out of step with her cabin-mates. (Larson doesn’t tell the reader this – she doesn’t have any narration – but we see Abby nonplussed several times by her very-slightly-more-worldly friends.

Abby’s first bunkmate leaves very quickly, due to chiggers. (Look ‘em up, if you don’t know. And be glad you don’t live in the same places they do.) And she gets a new bunkmate: Shasta, who all the other girls quickly decide they don’t like. Shasta’s a little full of herself – she’s on medication, can’t do a lot of camp activities, got hit by lightning, is one-eighth Cherokee, has an older Internet boyfriend – but Abby genuinely likes Shasta.

Chiggers is low-key; there are no major events. (Even by the overly-dramatic standards of a twelve-year-old girl.) Abby and Shasta meet, become friend, squabble, make up. Abby also meets a boy who thinks she looks like a half-elf – and I’m afraid I can remember a time in my own life when I would have thought that was a nice thing to say to someone. (Luckily, Abby takes it the right way.) (more…)

From Politico:

Back in September Anne Schroder reported that actor Val Kilmer was mulling a New Mexico Governor’s run.

And now that Bill "Bolo Tie" Richardson is Commerce Secretary to Be, well….there’s an opening.

Folks in Albuquerque spotted the bloated star at a basketball game last night.

The Albuquerque Journal’s caption: What was a movie star doing at the Lobo game vs. Oral Roberts? Especially in the company of former GOP state Rep. and lobbyist Joe Thompson, left, and Santa Fe businessman Jerry Peters, a friend of Gov. Bill Richardson, to Kilmer’s right?

Admit it. You’d forgotten he’d played Batman, didn’t you? You just saw the post headline and thought this was some new hallucination of Grant Morrison’s.

After breaking the news via the Washington Post, Marvel has finally begun to reveal some of the details behind the Black Panther revamp coming in February.  T’Challa, the reining Panther, seems to be replaced by a mysterious female.  Now, Marvel says T’Challa’s fate is tied to events in the aftermath of Secret Invasion and connected to Dark Reign, 2009’s new crossover event.

The first issue will be extra-sized and will carry variant covers including one in their 70th anniversary series.

A sneak peek and interview with artist Ken Lashley has been posted at Marvel’s website.

Hudlin told the Post, "Over the course of 40 issues [over three years], we … really defined the character in a way that hadn’t been done before. … Having done that, you go: "How do we up the stakes?" Marvel is great about doing really shocking changes to their character — they don’t believe in just keeping everything as status quo."

Under Hudlin, the Panther married Storm from the X-Men and has defended his country of Wakanda from foreign and intergalactic invaders.

  (more…)

Keanu Reeves told MTV that the live-action adaptation of the popular Cowboy Bebop will take “Asteroid Blues”, the first episode and expand it into a feature. “We’ve got the rights, we’ve got a writer,” Reeves said. “He’s putting together a scene outline.”

Reeves and producer Eric Stoff acquired the rights via 20th-Century Fox in a deal announced over the summer.

The series was one of the early anime hits in the 1990s and gained a cult following for the 26 episodes, created by Shinichiro Watanabe and Keiko Nobumoto, which were produced and aired on Cartoon Network. Bandai Entertainment released the entire series and anime film Bones on DVD. It has made frequent appearances on top anime lists both here and in Japan.

“It’s got a Western quality, a Western film noir aspect to it,” Reeves said. “It’s got so much style to it, and that’s part of its appeal. That kind of Old West, bordertown, low-tech science fiction aspect.

“I think that would be a production designer’s dream. I think you just need a good production designer.”

The series, set aboard the spacecraft Bebop, is heavily influenced by American jazz music and cowboy themes.  It debuted in 1998 and reached America in 2001.