What does a whimsical children’s film from Martin Scorsese look like? Like this, apparently:

http://cdn.springboard.gorillanation.com/storage/xplayer/yo033.swf

Original title “Hugo Cabret,” incidentally. And those silent-movie-making sequences are apparently setting up Georges Melies as a supporting character, in answer to the “what probably attracted Scorsese to this?” question.

“The Thing” has the mother of all solutions to the “people are sick of remakes” problem: John Carpenter’s original film (itself a remake of an adaptation) opened with the discovery of the aftermath of events similar to what would eventually occur; so the remake purports to depict THAT and therefore technically qualify as a prequel.

…yeah, I’m not not really buyin’ it either – but, whatever, the trailer is actually not half bad:

Yes, I’ve seen the (probably) legit “Dark Knight Rises” teaser that’s supposed to start showing up in front of “Harry Potter” tonight and tomorrow. No, I’m NOT going to post bootleg links on this site.

There’s not much to it, honestly, but some impressions after the jump…

At least half of it is clips from the previous films, primarily “Begins.”

A good deal of Liam Neeson’s “Begins” dialogue used as voiceover; suggesting that the rumors about the loose-ends of that film coming back into play here have merit.

The titles make it EXPLICITLY clear that this is the END of this series.

I don’t know that there was a single good “new” shot of Batman or Bruce Wayne, but his voice is heard.

We see Bane, but not well.

A major character appears to have been critically-injured.

Dialogue heavily implies that a significant amount of time has passed since the last one, and that Batman has not been active for a portion of it.

No Catwoman or implications of Catwoman yet.

The video of the teaser is supposed to be officially released on Monday, but will supposedly be in theaters with most prints of “Potter.”

iFanboy has scans up (now posted in hi-res elsewhere) from Entertainment Weekly’s “Amazing Spider-Man” cover story. The piece itself is so much P.R.-driven fluff (EW, after all) but there’s some new stuff to see: Action poses of the new suit (still looks like an overdesigned mess to me, and the least-likable thing about the Raimi-era suit – the “texture” stuff – is turned up to eleven) first look at Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben (MEGA-SPOILER!!! He looks like… Martin Sheen in a work shirt!!!) and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy.

The big “nerd-minutiae” stuff is real, visual confirmation that the web-shooters are oldschool mechanical – which pretty-much everyone has known for over a year now (yeah, I’ll brag about it – called it right off the bat as the easiest bit of fanservice they could do) but it’s still nice to see.

Still no explanation for Spidey’s odd metal toe-shoes – at least, no official one. It’s not solid enough for me to “tip my hand,” but some of the early rumbles suggest that the “source” of Peter’s powerset (and maybe even transformation/origin itself) are getting a major overhaul that leans heavy on the home-made-hero angle; so take that for what you will.

I wonder if scifi/fantasy fans today appreciate just how ancient Edgar Rice Burroughs “Mars” books are. This is on of the “subject zeroes” of genre-fiction – think “War of the Worlds.” Think “King Solomon’s Mines.” It was old when “Lord of The Rings” was young. The “bedrock” stories modern writers and filmmakers try to live up to today were themselves trying to live up to this.

People have been trying to put the series (which concerns a Civil War veteran named John Carter who is transported to Mars and gets caught up in an alien conflict) on film since the invention of film. This first “real” attempt comes courtesy of Pixar’s Andrew Stanton… and it looks VERY close to a “nailed it.”

I like everything about this trailer – starting from the fact that they’re apparently keeping the “journals kept by a dead relative” framing device and ending with the not-at-all-generic music choice and editing. It’d be nice to see some more of the aliens (whose outlandishness is what’s largely kept the series unfilmmable until now) but I’m liking the look of it – yes, even what looks like a logical-compromise in the realm of costuming (Burroughs was BIG on “going native” machismo, and was seldom without an excuse for his heroes and heroines to do their fighting essentially naked.)

It’ll be interesting to see how a general audience reacts to this – the inherent problem in adapting older genre material is that it’s been so thoroughly cannibalized by it’s descendants that literally EVERYTHING about it will be somewhat familiar dozens of times over – what “Star Wars” borrowed from Flash Gordon, Flash Gordon borrowed from John Carter. So far, I like what I see… but will what boils down to “Conan in Space” go over with anyone else?

OLD FACT: A Raimi/Tapert/Campbell produced “Evil Dead” remake is happening.

NEW FACT: Crazy-talented newcomer Fede Alvarez is directing it.

NEW(ER) FACT: Diablo Cody is writing the screenplay.

Pop Quiz! Which of those facts do you suppose the geek-o-sphere will be pissing and moaning like gigantic, entitled babies about between now and the first trailer?

Bonus Question! Of the FIVE names listed above, which one will be overwhelmingly “blamed” for every casting decision, character-change or story revision said “sphere” decides it doesn’t like in that same time period?

Yeah… look, gang – I’m a confirmed hater of Cody’s “Jennifer’s Body.” I appreciated what it was trying to do, but it failed at it pretty spectacularly. That said, I don’t “get” the Diablo Cody backlash in film-geek circles. Well… that’s not true. I GET it, I’m just sort of annoyed and dismayed by it.

I really hate situations where this ends up having to be pointed out; but it’s kind of unnavoidable that to a large (not “overwhelming,” but certainly large) degree American “geekdom” still exists as a predominantly white/hetero/male culture. And while that’s not a “bad” thing in and of itself, it does seem to manifest in sometimes ugly ways when female, black, etc. filmmakers try to play in “our” sandbox. You see it in the outcries against race-flipped casting, you’ll see it in the innevitable “White Guilt!!!” replies to this post, and I think you see it in the way people “turned around” on Cody once she became a “brand.”

Frankly, the MAIN thing she has working against her – the criticism that her character’s all talk like the same person, namely Diablo Cody – is something that A.) people seem willing to overlook for Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith and David Mamet, and B.) not really a pressing concern in a franchise whose best-remembered dialogue is very much in her wheelhouse. I’m not saying this WON’T turn out to be a bad choice, but I don’t think it’ll be worth the forgone-conclusion freakout it’s going to cause in some circles.

Besides, hating on Diablo Cody will only serve to distract The Internet from it’s TRUE mission on this project: Determining which largely-unknown onetime castmember of which failed Joss Whedon project is the ONLY!!!! concievably-appropriate choice for the new Ash, and circulating a petition to make it happen. Priorities, people 😉

Via Gawker

A Florida chapter of scientifically-illiterate, hyperreligious paranoid xenophobes The Citrus County Tea Party Patriots have uncovered yet another threat to The United States of Christopia: MANATEES. American Conservatives’ endless quest to make the bad guys from “Captain Planet” look nuanced by comparison marches on…

Edna Mattos, the “leader” of the Citrus County Tea Party Patriots has launched a campaign to oppose increased protections on edangered Manatees in King’s Bay:

“We cannot elevate nature above people,” explained Edna Mattos, 63, leader of the Citrus County Tea Party Patriots, in an interview. “That’s against the Bible and the Bill of Rights.”

It’s also, of course, all part of the conspiracy by the United Nations – that scaaaaary organization of untrustworthy Europeans and Brown People who want to take your guns and Bibles – to take over the world through environmental regulations. Mattos explains:

“We believe that (federal regulators’) aim is to control the fish and wildlife, in addition to the use of the land that surrounds this area, and the people that live here and visit. … As most of us know, this all ties in to the United Nations’ Agenda 21 and Sustainability.”

“Agenda 21” is a largely symbolic, essentially-unenforcable U.N. resolution (so, in other words, a U.N. resolution) from 1992 to encourage environmentally-responsible development. Nobody cared about it (again, U.N. resolution) until Glenn Beck convinced his acolytes that it was evidence of “the plan.”

I’m generally reluctant to post stuff from MSNBC (or anyone else’s) opinion programs because it always degenerates into mutual bile-spewing about “bias;” but this clip from last night’s Rachel Maddow Show is too much of a treasure-trove of religious-psycopathy for me NOT to call attention to…

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640

These are REAL guys – not satirists – many of them speaking to cheering, agreeing crowds of THOUSANDS in an allegedly modern country. I don’t care what, if anything, your spiritual or political affiliation (or lack thereof) is – that FACT should scare the shit out of you.

Whenever I’m on about “Thinkers vs. Believers,” this is the stuff I’m talking about.

Somewhere between the post-production of “Spider-Man 2” and the clusterfuck of shenanigans surrounding “Spider-Man 4;” something seemed to have gone vaugely “awry” with Sam Raimi. Longtime collaborator Danny Elfman claimed they’d had a major falling-out, and on the business side his innability to make a project come-together was approaching that of Guillermo del Toro.

Recently, though, things appear to have turned a corner. The rift with Elfman has apparently been healed, his “Oz: The Great and Powerful” feature is looking like it could beat the inexplicable glut of upcoming “Wizard of Oz” alterna-takes to the screen, and now Bloody Disgusting reports that the long-promise “official” reboot of “Evil Dead” is on the way…

Supposedly, the Raimi-produced remake of the original “Evil Dead” has re-entered development, and BD claims that a highly sought-after young talent has been tapped to direct: Federico Alvarez, an Uruguayan indie wunderkind whose short film “Ataque de Panico!” (“Panic Attack!”) – in which Montevideo is leveled by giant alien robots – became an international sensation a year or so back:

So that’s what giant robots look like when they don’t suck…