Admittedly, the title is a little hopefull right now…
Not wanting to get peoples hopes up too much, but according to the Daily Mail Rider could be getting out in just a few weeks:
The 43-year-old is included on a list of possible pardons which will be dealt with during Ramadan, which falls in September. A spokesman for the DJ’s management said: ‘He’s bearing up but desperate to get out.’
Fingers crossed, stay tuned for more.
I was kind of intrigued earlier this week, while reading some of the pre-release hype around Pixar’s new, highly acclaimed CGI flick WALL-E. For those of you that have managed to miss it all, the film is set in a future where humans have been forced to abandon Earth due to pollution and environmental breakdown.
I was intrigued, because in a couple of interviews I read director/writer Andrew Stanton seemed to be going out of his way to play down any environmental message the film might have:
The most I do is recycle, and sometimes I’m even pretty bad at that…I don’t have a political bent, I don’t have an ecological message to push….I’m not stupid, I started to notice as this film was getting closer to being done the sort of issues that were out in the zeitgeist, but they were certainly not my intention. The last thing I’m gonna do is try to make a message movie.
At first I guessed (like Devin over at CHUD) it was just the Disney/Pixar spin machine whiring into action; while a kids film with an environmental message would actually attract audiences in Europe and Japan, in the neo-conservative US it’s a big no-no, where suspicion about the pinko liberal-media is rife, and most people seemingly still believe global warming is some kind of hippy propaganda.
But then, as I was walking to work this morning, I passed a massive billboard that made things a little bit clearer….
(I couldn’t find an image of the billboard…the above is a screen-grab from the Suzuki website)
Yep, that’s right – Disney/Pixar have signed an deal to use WALL-E in advertising for auto-manufacturers and CO2 enthusiasts Suzuki.
For fuck’s sake.
I’m a little lost for words, and hugely disappointed. I’m still looking forward to seeing the movie, but this has left a slightly nasty, petroleum flavoured taste in my mouth. At least Ghibli, who don’t shy from corporate sponsorship in Japan, and whom Pixar staff always point to as one of their main inspirations, would never try and play down the environmental messages that are apparent in pretty much every single film they make.
Shame.
Headline says it all really…the first footage from the new Ghibli movie have been shown on Japanese TV and thus are now all over the Grid.
Still no news on a US or European release date…
Apparently, after he’s finished this, Miyazaki’s next movie is going to be about sumo wrestling mice. Which doesn’t sound mind-blowing, but this is a Ghibli film we’re talking about….not Kung Fu Panda…
Today is a tragic day for movie and science fiction fans.
Last night special FX legend Stan Winston, best known for his work on movie franchises such as Terminator, Aliens and Jurassic Park, died. While those franchises might have flagged creatively, Winston never did, always maintaining a truly unique eye for industrial design and an artist’s precognitive gaze into the future. His work on the Marines’ equipment and weapons in James Cameron’s Aliens was a personal favourite of mine, his designs somehow forward-echoing the images we see every night of US troops on duty in Iraq.
He will be sorely missed - AICN has an excellent obit plus comments from Cameron and others.
My thoughts go out to his friends and family.
Actually, there’s nothing funny about this. Nothing at all.
Miyagi Prefectural Police officials in northeastern Japan have announced on Monday that they discovered a man dead in his apartment underneath several hundred manga volumes and magazines. They are investigating the cause of death and whether the 37-year-old male company employee is another casualty of last week’s earthquake in Miyagi.
From Anime News Network.
Ahh, my poor neglected readers. The image above is misleading - I’ve just been slack the last couple of weeks….actually, I’ve been far from slack if I’m truthful, things have been pretty hectic. Job interviews, freelance work, fixing my HTPC and some unusually good British weather have all conspired against me getting any blogging done. But, hopefully, this week will see me back with a vengence - expect reviews of Ghibli short Iblard Jikan, CGI anime Vexille and maybe the Speed Racer movie, a piece on essential anime movies, and perhaps some catch up reviews of Denno Coil and Freedom. Oh, and the possibility of something slightly new for the site - music reviews, specifically of the new Calibre and D-Bridge albums, when my promised copies hit the doormat…
Don’t touch that dial.
Or at least his writers are. Once again they seem able to sum everything up in just under five minutes:
Updated: link fixed, video working again…
I can’t start to tell you how important the movie 2001 has been in my life. For a start, my parents went to see it on their first date. Then they took me to see it when it was re-shown at the cinema in the early 80’s…I must have been about 9 or 10. It completely fucked with my head. Pretty much ever since then I’ve been a fan of both Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke. It’s a weird feeling to know now that neither of them are around…
Cat Le-Huy, 31, head of technology for Big Brother makers Endemol, finally returned home last Thursday after being thrown behind bars on a holiday in the UAE in January, also for cannabis possession. He had less than 0.03 grams - about the same weight as a grain of salt, apparently - in his suitcase. What’s also interesting is that he shared a cell with Grooverider.
He’s told his side of the story to the Hampstead and Highgate Express, and it doesn’t make for very happy reading. It sounds pretty grim in there. Again, my best wishes to Rider and all his friends and family.
Just…nothing.
The Americans are insisting on re-making the greatest British comedy series of all time, Spaced. And not just any American either, but the living, breathing, directing walking turd that is Joseph “McG” McGinty Nichol, the motherfucker responsible for those retarded ‘Charlie’s Angels’ remakes. Oh, and according to that wiki entry, he’s also in the process of further fucking up the already fucked up ‘Terminator’ franchise.
Plus he’s doing it without the permission or involvement of the original Spaced crew, who are understandably pretty fucked off themselves with the whole thing. Fantastic. Check out the full, horrible shit-storm over at Ain’t it Cool, including a script review of the pilot. But just try not to sob, or let it angry up the blood too much.
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