In honor of South Park‘s new season startig yesterday, we wanted to take the time to show you this memo between co-creator Matt Stone and the MPAA over the release of the movie South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.
It’s my favorite memo too. Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan
When traveling in SF circles, inevitably you find pockets of people who adore certain books or films or TV series who cannot conceive of how you consider your life complete without having read or watched “Fill in the Blank”. One of the shows that are on the list I’ve heard over the years has been [[[Red Dwarf]]]. The BBC series was said to be a beloved comedy that skewered science fiction tropes and was a delight to watch. So, when BBC Worldwide offered to send me [[[Red Dwarf: Back to Earth]]] for review, I kindly accepted (which is my way of saying, this was a complimentary copy for those keeping track in Washington).
I knew very little about the show and figured I would watch it with an open mind, eager to see what the fuss was all about. The two-disc set, on sale this week, offers the series as three episodes, as it aired this spring in England, or a director’s cut that spares you sitting through the credits more than once, although a few lines referring to the show as being in three parts have been deleted.
Written and directed by series co-creator Doug Naylor, the story opens nine years after we last saw the crew of the Red Dwarf and we learn that things are not going well. They’re running low on water and the water tank is currently housing a threatening squid-like creature. Before you know it, Katerina Bartikovsky (Sophie Winkleman), reappears on the ship and uses the mining equipment to slice a hole between dimensions with the hopes that they can find a human female who will help repopulate the human race (which apparently went extinct millions of years earlier). Instead, they find themselves transported to Earth circa spring 2009 AD and learn that they are all fictional characters slated to die when the three-part series concludes transmission. From there, they seek the series’ creator and the show shifts tone and feel, parodying [[[Blade Runner]]].
Unfortunately, for those of us just tuning in for the first time, very little backstory and context is provided. I have no idea that the truly annoying Cat (Danny John-Jules) is an evolved version of the cat David Lister (Craig Charles) smuggled aboard the ship three million years earlier. I have no idea why the Red Dwarf seems to be plying an unpopulated universe and why they are so incredibly incompetent.
The humor was too broad for my tastes, I guess, because I never laughed or smirked. I found the self-referential bits in the 21st Century self-indulgent and wasting a great opportunity to tell a good reunion story. The Blade Runner elements felt shoe-horned in because, apparently, the series would periodically parody other films. I was actually bored and fidgety watching this, leading me to conclude the reunion show was aimed squarely at its fan base and was not at all interested in attracting new viewers.
Disc two contains a nice variety of features such as Smeg Ups (lengthy bloopers) which gives you a glimpse of how much green screen work was done to recreate the look of the ship. You get featurettes on the show’s SFX, see the cast sign pictures and chat (boring), the electronic press kit, four behind-the-scenes pieces, trailers, photo galleries and the obligatory Making of [[[Back to Earth]]]. While somewhat engaging, this disc is also more for the fans of the series who can’t get enough Red Dwarf.
Since the miniseries never aired in the United States, this is your chance to see it for yourself and if you loved the series, I guess you’ll like this.
After a small hiatus, the geek talk series is back with a vengeance!
This week, hosts Alan Kistler and Carrie Wright talk with Halloween director Rob Zombie, Battlestar Galactica and Blade Runner actor Edward James Olmos and novelist David Mack, talking about remakes, reboots and sequels:
And if you want to see what else is in store for the series, check our cool trailer!
Every week, “Crazy Sexy Geeks: The Series” will discuss topics such as super-hero fashion, the best time travel stories, movie monsters, mythology in comics, gay characters in media, and what makes a good adaptation. You can find new episodes right here and on the YouTube channel “CrazySexyGeeksSeries.”
The continuing printed adventures of John Gaunt and friends. Available at finer comic book stores nationwide.
Lego Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary
By Simon Beecroft
96 pages, $21.99, DK Publishing
It used to be that Lego would never feature licensed characters. Instead, you could construct moon bases or pirate ships and make up your own characters to tell tales plucked straight from your imagination. Then came the first license, [[[Star Wars]]], which proved so successful that there is now an entire line of licensed Lego toys which in turn have spawned video games and related merchandise.
Now, DK Publishing this week provides readers [[[Lego Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary]]] which breaks George Lucas’ universe into sections: the Movie Saga, The Clone Wars, Specialist Sets, and Beyond the Brick. A handy timeline upfront shows you the explosive growth of the line with every set properly displayed and identified for completists.
Each section properly displays each figure or vehicle with a handy guide to the number of pieces, their set number and which film the construct relates to. Along the way, the capsule descriptions provide information not only about the figure or vehicle but about their construction and history. You learn some interesting facts and I discovered to my surprise and delight that set 7163 features a Jedi Bob (must find!).
This is a treasure trove of information for the diehard Lego collector but written for those 7 years old and up, it also is engaging and entertaining with information about the characters and their adventures.
The book, as is typical of DK’s output, is a visual treat and the bottom corners feature, respectively, storm troopers and Luke Skywalker so flipping through the pages you get a sense of animation.
Not being a kid anymore, I found the Beyond the Brick section the most fascinating to see the level of detail that went into their construction as Jens Kronvold Frederiksen, Design Manager, has a nice interview about the entire Star Wars line for Lego. There’s even a final spread about the Lego Star Wars merchandising which is a growing subset of the overall Star Wars phenomenon.
As with any Lego line, there’s something special here. The book comes complete with an exclusive Luke Skywalker minifigure which begs the question if the book is ruined by taking out the toy to play with his compatriots.
Because sometimes, you just gotta.
In a move guaranteed to accelerate the adoption of the PDF review copy, the Federal Trade Commission revised their “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials” (click here to download),
urging bloggers who review products, from a book or DVD to a video game
system, to disclose if they received the product for free when giving
an endorsement. According to the Washington Post, breaking these new guidelines could generate up to $11,000 in fines. (There are no penalties directly associated with violating the rules. But the FTC could seek a cease-and-desist order. If you ignore that, the fines start coming in.) These new guidelines will be put into
effect on December 1, 2009.
Bureau of Consumer Protection representative Richard Cleland was interviewed about the guidelines to clarify for blogging reviewers. In a statement that shows that he doesn’t understand how the book reviewing process works, Cleland said
that newspaper book reviewers are exempt because “the newspaper
receives the book and it allows the reviewer to review it, it’s still
the property of the newspaper.” Cleland saw no problem with a blogger receiving
a book, provided there wasn’t a linked advertisement to buy the book
and that the blogger did not keep the book after he had finished
reviewing it. Keeping the book would, from Cleland’s standpoint, count
as “compensation” and require a disclosure– but there would be no such disclosure required if the blogger took the item and sold it for cash or store credit? Huh? (Are they trying to put the Strand out of business?)
This may accelerate another trend I came across recently: I understand that at least one major website has cut their book reviews back from twice a week to twice a month– and this was before the announcement of these guidelines, so maybe it will just be easier to cut reviews altogether. But apparently, it’ll be fine for them to keep promoting their own product relentlessly, and will presumably do so.
Pixarpedia
300 Pages, $40
DK Publishing
I doubt there has been a studio to start out with as long a streak of consecutive hits as Pixar. Not only have they succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest expectations, but they have helped rewrite the rules for family entertainment and created an armload of pop culture characters that are likely to endure for decades to come. The secret, it seems, has been to take iconic themes and figures and distill them down to their essence then tell engaging stories that never lose sight of character.
You are reminded of those relatively simple and obvious lessons while reading DK Publishing’s [[[Pixarpedia]]], which was released some weeks back. Written with their core audience in mind, it’s geared for 9-12 year old readers and is a treasure trove of information about every feature and short film they have produced along with details on each character seen in the films.
The book is divided into thirds with the bookend sections about the studio. You can trace their progress from a small company owned by George Lucas to its sale to Steve Jobs and its explosive growth. The final third, Behind the Scenes, provides cast and crew credits and assorted trivia tidbits about each film along with sidebars spotlighting members of the company with career capsules. It’s amazing how many shout outs there are for beloved movies and people) especially Mickey Mouse) hidden in each film. You are shown many, but certainly not all, of them in this section.
The largest third is the movie by movie section that provides information about the major and minor characters. Unlike too many DK books, the visual design is clean and colorful, easy to read and chock full of detail. Sprinkled throughout are “Did you Know?” bullets with factual information that supplements each film. You get a plot summary, character descriptions, lavish looks at the sets and lots of fun reading.
Paging through the oversized book is a treat and overall, you come away with a greater knowledge about the characters than you might have imagined possible. At the end of this portion, there are pages dedicated to the themes that carry through the films and its their dedication to these simple dictates, like “You’ve got a Friend in Me”, that places their output head and shoulders above the competition.
Here’s a tip that you may rarely need, but when you do, hoooo boy.
Let’s say you’ve been flatting a page for coloring, or you’ve sent it out to be flatted. The page comes back, and it looks decent– except when you go to select an area, you discover that the page was created with antialiasing on, which makes it impossible to make a decent selection for further rendering. How do you get the page un-antialiased, without redoing the entire page?
Here’s how.
First, you’re going to need to the BPelt Flatten plugin for Photoshop. (You may find it and Multifill useful for other flatting jobs as well.)
Duplicate the color layer.
Apply Filter -> Stylize -> Find Edges
Apply Image -> Adjustments -> Threshold at 255.
Set layer to multiply and merge down.
Apply Filter -> bPelt -> Flatten.That’s it. You’ll get an un-antialiased image. Zooming in, you’ll go from this:
to this:
Still slow going around these parts, but have these tidbits to keep you warm during the cold season:
What’s getting you through the lean news season? Tell us in the comments.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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