We may be nearing a truce in the epic battle between Tim Burton and Robert Downey Jr. over which of them can make the least-interesting mid-period career choices; as the two titans of the “Guys We Like Despite MOST Of What They Make” cinema are poised to team for a live-action “reimagining” of “Pinocchio.”

The proposed project is currently called “Gepetto,” and would be partially a prequel detailing the origin-story (sigh…) of the puppeteer and partially a side-story explaining what kind of adventures Gepetto was having in between starting his search for Pinocchio and winding up in the belly of a whale/sea-monster/whatever.

Downey would play Gepetto. No word yet on which roles will innevitably go to Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter – the easy guesses being Pinocchio (or Jimminy Cricket!) and the Blue Fairy, respectively – though I believe it’s based on a “Black List” screenplay called “The Three Misfortunes of Gepetto” which, if so, gave him a love-interest named Julia Moon.

Eve if you take away the “Burton-ized fairytale” thing, this feels tired – another Tim Burton fantasy about estranged father/son relationships? Granted, this’ll be the first time he’s approached it from the older-party’s point of view, but still…

The ever-amusing Indoor Kids had the great Film Crit Hulk on their most-recent podcast, and he graciously gave me a mention at the start of some “Arkham City” discussion. Have a listen HERE.

Believe it or not, it’s possible for something to be so shamelessly, tranparently cynical that even I’m impressed.

Blustering bigot congressman Peter King has been leading the charge to use trumped-up accusations of Pentagon-leakage impropriety to taint the impending release of Kathryn Bigelow’s tentatively-titled “Kill Bin Laden” movie (summary of charges: the filmmakers may have had access to details about the mission earlier than non-military personel were supposed to) and is now bragging about having prodded the Department of Defense to investigate the matter.

You don’t need to be particularly politics-saavy to grasp what’s at work here: Of all the things tangible or otherwise that the Republican Party hates, one of the most potent is the fact that the mastermind behind 9/11 got his ticket punched on Obama’s watch. No impending 2012 campaign commercial strikes as much terror into their hearts as the ones that will feature Obama’s circa-2008 “we will capture and kill” declaration, followed by right-wing pundits and talking heads snarking about it, followed by last year’s “we got him!” press conference… and they REALLY don’t want movie trailers for what amounts to “We Got Him: The Movie!” running all over the place, either. So they’re flailing around madly in search of a way to discredit it.

It’s particularly galling to see the wastes of humanity at Breitbart’s madhouse creaming themselves over the prospect. I watched that gaggle of goons pontificate for eight years about how there weren’t enough present-set heroic-military movies getting made, and now that the ULTIMATE “happy ending” War on Terror movie has the green light they HAVE to come out against it… because it MIGHT make their arch-nemesis look good.

I knew I forgot to do something today…

“Intermission” is a new version of “Quit It.”

And now, a not-terribly-funny commercial announcing the return of Billy Crystal as host of this year’s Academy Awards to anyone mercifully-detached enough from entertainment news so as to NOT already be aware that he’d been brought in to salvage the show after the originally-planned Bret Ratner/Eddie Murphy production blew up in everybody’s faces – which, come to think of it, is exactly the audience Crystal’s return will thrill the most, so… good call, I guess:

I know, I know, it’s trite to bag on Crystal. I actually like the guy as an actor, and he IS good at the “your gracious host” schtick… at least, as good as anyone is.

Come to think of it… anyone else think maybe Crystal overshot his true calling? I mean, it felt like in the 90s he stopped doing standup and transitioned out of regular host-type gigs in a bid to become a Tom Hanks style comedy/drama leading man and it didn’t really “take” outside of the first “City Slickers.” I wonder if he wouldn’t have been better off (to say nothing of better-suited) to getting into something like the Late Night Talk scene? Like, imagine if Billy Crystal had become the host of The Tonight Show instead of Leno? Or, better yet, if Letterman had gotten the Tonight Show like he ought to have and Crystal got the competing (and more-appropriately New York-based) Late Show instead? He would have KILLED at that!

The Nostalgia Critic (whom you should all be watching anyway – hardworking dude doing great material) got hit by some computer issues in the midst of his December shows, but has now finished airing his run of planned XMas episodes anyway with a review of one of my all-time favorite “WTF?” cult-classics: “Santa Claus: The Movie.”

Give it a watch before you put the last of your lights and such away 😉

I’m on the Media Sandwich podcast with Chris and Kyle today; which you should be listening to anyway but especially now:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/media-sandwich/5182-Media-Sandwich-Episode-3

Hey all!

As mentioned before, I’m scheduled to be at the Boston Area scifi convention ARISIA 2012 the weekend of January 13 – 16 at the Westin Boston Waterfront. Here’s a quick rundown of panels/events (preliminary) where I’m schedule to appear (whole schedule available HERE)

Friday 5:30 PM – “E.T. at 30.”
Friday 7:00 PM – “The Future of Bioethics as Portrayed in Film”
Friday 8:30 PM – “Batman Through the Ages”
Friday 10:00 PM – “More Terrible SF/F Movies We Love”

Saturday 10:00 AM – “Gender and Video Games”
Saturday 1:00 PM – “Monsters in Motion: Harryhausen at Work”
Saturday 4:00 PM – “If You Liked Part 1…”
Saturday 10:00 PM – “The Death of PC Gaming May Be Greatly Exaggerated”

Sunday 1:00 PM – “Wonder Woman”
Sunday 10:00 PM – “Marvel Movies”

Monday 10:00 AM – “Star Wars at 35”
Monday 11:30 AM – “MST3K: The Panel”
Monday 1:00 PM – “The Alien as Metaphor”

Big news from the world of games journalism today, as Vox Media (the folks behind The Verge) have announced the launch of a gaming news site. To start with, they’ve hired up a murderer’s-row of established industry talent: Chris Grant (formerly of Joystiq), Justin McElroy (Joystiq), Brian Crecente (Kotaku), Russ Pitts (The Escapist), Chris Plante, Russ Frushtick, Arthur Gies and Griffin McElroy.

Russ Pitts I know personally – he’s one of the people who helped pluck your’s truly out of YouTube obscurity and was a key figure in shaping Escape to The Movies and The Big Picture. Just wanted to toss he and his new compatriots some extra promotion. Good luck, guys!

Sorry this didn’t get up earlier. Busy week, already…