She & Him Debut New Video

Here is the first video from “She & Him,” the musical duo that includes Zooey Deschanel and Portlander Matt Ward. The song “Why Do you Let Me Stay Here?” is from their self-titled album.

 

 

DOWNLOAD She & Him - Why Do You Let Me Stay Here

Watchmen: A First Look

In his bungalow on the Warner Bros. lot, Zack Snyder keeps a suitcase large enough to hold a rocket launcher. It doesn’t. Popping open the lid reveals a set of finely crafted action figures encased in black foam: Dr. Manhattan. Rorschach. Ozymandias. Nite Owl. Silk Spectre. The Comedian. They’re based on comic-book superheroes that aren’t exactly household names, but if the director of the sword-and-sandals smash 300 has his way, these characters will become icons as explosive as any state-of-the-art weapon. ”In my movie, Superman doesn’t care about humanity, Batman can’t get it up, and the bad guy wants world peace,” Snyder says with a smirk. ”Will Watchmen be the end of superhero movies? Probably not. But it sure will kick them in the gut.”

Watchmen won’t hit theaters till March 6, 2009, but Snyder and his cast are about to face a trial by fire: On July 25, they’re screening special teaser footage for thousands in San Diego at the annual summit of cult pop, Comic-Con. The movie is no kid-safe funny-book flick. It’s an R-rated, $100 million adaptation of the smartest, most subversive superhero story ever created. Published by DC Comics in 1986 and routinely hailed by even mainstream critics as a literary masterpiece, Watchmen is many things — a jittery expression of Cold War anxiety, a chilling meditation on human nature, an intricate murder mystery. But at its heart this sexy, violent, and politically charged 12-issue saga, written by Alan Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons, is an epic love letter to colorfully clad superpeople and a wicked satire about them. Set in 1985, but in an alternate reality where Richard Nixon is serving his fifth term as president and costumed crime-fighting has been outlawed, the story begins with the brutal murder of a retired superhero named the Comedian. Another ex-superhero, the inkblot-masked Rorschach, believes that someone is trying to assassinate his former colleagues. Is it a serial killer at work, or is there a global conspiracy involved? A twisty plot unfolds, enveloping an array of bizarre, damaged, and bracingly human fantasy people. ”We wanted to explore simple questions with not-so-simple answers,” Gibbons says. ”What if superheroes really existed? How would they really think? And how would they really affect the world?”

Read the entire Entertainment Weekly article here.

What To Get The Person Who Has Everything (If You’re Rich)

Self-taught artist, Dale Mathis, has come up with this great looking Executive Desk. It not only appears to be a fully-functional work space but it also features cogs and gears under its transparent surface, some of which actually move. Mathis, who was once a bouncer for a Las Vegas strip club, creates amazing looking pieces, which often contain clock-work and other steampunk-y looking machinery. However, the $20,000 price tag on this particular item may put it out of reach for most home-office decor. See a video of the desk parts in motion below.

 

New Heroes Commercial

iPhone 3G Supply Snapshot: 61% of Apple Stores Sold Out

A week after its launch, the iPhone 3G remains a hard-to-find item in the U.S., with nearly all of AT&T’s company-owned stores sold out. According to checks made earlier this morning by iLounge, Apple’s online iPhone 3G availability page shows approximately 61% of the company’s 187 retail stores sold out of iPhone 3G. 57 stores (30%) show availability of at least one iPhone 3G model, while only 15 stores (8%) report stock of all three models. Out of the 57 stores with at least one model in stock, 22 were located in New York and California, with 7 out of the 15 stores showing availability of all three models coming from those two states. This gives NY and CA a disproportionately high percentage (40%) of stores with stock remaining. While Apple is understood to be making shipments to its stores on an almost daily basis, it remains to be seen when iPhone 3G availability will again be widespread.

Comic-Con ‘08 Preview: 25 Sneak Peeks

Get a first look at what pop-culture fans are flocking to San Diego next week to see — what’s up presenters’ sleeves for buzz projects including ”Star Trek,” ”Dollhouse,” ”Fringe,” and more.  Click here to see the gallery.

 

E-Mail From Dharma (LOST)

ATTENTION ALL RECRUITS
DHARMA HEAD OF RECRUITING TO ATTEND LAUNCH

Octagon Global Recruiting, on behalf of the Dharma Initiative, is pleased to announce that Dharma’s Head of Recruiting, Mr. Hans Van Eeghen, has confirmed his availability for the launch of our latest recruiting drive at Comic-Con 2008.

“My colleagues at Octagon Global Recruiting assure me that Comic-con hosts some of the brightest minds in the country,” said Mr. Van Eeghen. “As Head of Recruiting it is my intention to personally assess the very best of this talent in the hope that they may join us.”

The Dharma Initiative will be conducting eligibility assessments at Booth 3529 at Comic-Con, San Diego between July 24th - 27th.

If you are attending Comic-Con and would like to submit your name for a randomly selected drawing to secure one of ten (10) pre-release appointments with one of our recruiting officers, please click here.

The volunteer eligibility assessment will be available online from July 28th for a limited time at www.dharmawantsyou.com

The Dharma Initiative hopes you will spread the word. Invite your friends to join the team at www.octagonglobalrecruiting.com

If you can’t view the images in this email please click here

The Office Webisode: Kevin’s Loan, Episode 2 - Malone’s Cones

 

Vintage Looking Time Travel Posters For A Good Cause

Dave Eggers‘ Time Travel Mart in LA just released a fantastic poster set that takes on the look and feel of old Pan Am travel ads to hype several of the historical eras we’ll all be hitting in our future DeLoreans—Pangaea to run with the dinos, Tokyo 2.0 where binary is the official language, and so on. LA Artist Amy Martin is responsible, and like everything else in Eggers’s novelty shop empire (pirates and super heroes also have their own outlets), the $20 goes to writing workshops for kids.  You can look at additional posters and order them here.

 

 

 

Top 10 Famous Hotel Rooms

1. Room 1738, 1740, 1742, Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal, Canada

John Lennon and Yoko Ono stayed in bed here for a week in 1969 to protest the Vietnam War but the suite’s biggest event was Lennon and Ono recording anti-war song “Give Peace a Chance” there. Now available to the public as the John Lennon and Yoko Ono suite, the living room and bedroom have various press articles and other memorabilia to commemorate their stay.

2. Room 16, L’Hotel Paris, France

“My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go,” Oscar Wilde said in this hotel room where he spent his last days before his death in 1900. Wilde was flat broke when he stayed there as you can see from letters on the wall, asking Wilde to pay his bill.

3. Room 105, Highland Gardens Hotel (formerly Landmark Hotel), Hollywood, California

Janis Joplin checked into this Hollywood hotel room and overdosed on heroin, dying on October 4, 1970. Now renamed the Highland Gardens, the hotel does make her famous hotel room available to the public.

4. Room 776, The Mayflower, Washington, D.C.

Franklin Roosevelt stayed here in the months leading up to his 1933 presidential inauguration. The hotel is also more recently known as the site of Client 9’s (aka former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer) secret meetings.

5. Room 217, The Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, Colorado

Stephen King and his wife checked into this room in Colorado for a quiet weekend but instead King came up with the idea for “The Shining.” Many believe the hotel is haunted. “The Shining” TV miniseries was shot here as well as parts of “Dumb and Dumber.” The hotel’s TV plays the movie and miniseries on a loop.

6. Room 524, Stamford Plaza (formerly The Ritz-Carlton), Sydney, Australia

INXS leader singer Michael Hutchence hanged himself with a belt in this room in November 1997, with a coroner ruling it was suicide despite a popular suggestion his death was accidental.

7. Room 203, Mark Twain Hotel, San Francisco, California

On January 22, 1949, federal narcotics agents raided jazz singer Billie Holiday’s room and she was arrested for possession of opium. The case went to trial but she was acquitted.

8. Presidential Suite Brandenburg Gate, Kempinski Hotel Adlon, Berlin, Germany

Michael Jackson dangled his baby from his room in 2002, later saying it was a “terrible mistake.” In the suite you get a living room with a fireplace, two bedrooms, an office, dining room, kitchenette, private sauna and a personal butler. Guests have included Bill Clinton and Queen Elizabeth.

9. Monet Suite, Savoy, London, England

French Impressionist Claude Monet painted over 70 canvases of downtown London and the Thames in this room. The Savoy is currently under renovations but before it closed, the hotel offered the Monet Experience — a two night stay in this room with canvases, paint easels and an art teacher.

10. The Churchill Suite, Mena House Oberoi Hotel, Cairo, Egypt

Sir Winston Churchill stayed in this room as an allied leader during World War Two while the hotel hosted the Cairo Conference between U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, Chinese President Chiang Kai-shek and Churchill. It’s said Churchill returned to his room each night and slept with his curtains open so he could see the Pyramids of Giza. (Reprinted from the AskMen.com)

 

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

“Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog”, the latest project by Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly & Serenity), is a three part web-based musical mini series staring Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible, Nathan Fillion as Captain Hammer and Felicia Day as Penny.

Whedon says the whole point of this series, aside from making a bunch of silly jokes and adding to the not-very-large body of supervillain musicals, is to change the way Hollywood does business. He writes: “It wouldn’t hurt if this really was an event. Good for the business, good for the community – communities: Hollywood, internet, artists around the world, comic-book fans, musical fans (and even the rather vocal community of people who hate both but will still dig on this). Proving we can turn Dr Horrible into a viable economic proposition as well as an awesome goof will only inspire more people to lay themselves out in the same way. It’s time for the dissemination of the artistic process. Create more for less. You are the ones that can make that happen.”

Act One can be viewed here and Act Two can be viewed here.  Act Three will be online here on July 19^th. Episodes are only free until July 20^th.

Watch The Awesome Watchmen Trailer

Here is the new teaser trailer for Zack Snyder’s Watchmen adaptation, coming to theaters on March 6, 2009. The Warner Bros. Pictures release stars Patrick Wilson, Jackie Earle Haley, Matthew Goode, Billy Crudup, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Malin Akerman, Carla Gugino, Stephen McHattie and Matt Frewer. A complex, multi-layered mystery adventure, Watchmen is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the “Doomsday Clock” - which charts the USA’s tension with the Soviet Union - is permanently set at five minutes to midnight. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the washed-up but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion - a ragtag group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers - Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity…but who is watching the watchmen?

Click here to watch the trailer.

10 Facts About Disneyland

1. Roy O. Disney arranged to buy the very first ticket to Disneyland, but if you don’t count him, the first person to buy a ticket and enter the gates was David MacPherson. The first two children were Christine Vess and Michael Schwartner. All three of them received lifetime passes to Disneyland which was later upgraded to lifetime passes to any Disney park anywhere in the world.

2. The public opening day was July 18, but the press day was July 17, which is the day Disney recognizes as its opening.

3. The press day sucked. Disasters included counterfeit tickets, 101°F temperatures, broken drinking fountains, vendors running out of food, and a gas leak that resulted in Fantasyland, Adventureland and Frontierland being closed for the afternoon.

4. It was originally going to be called “Mickey Mouse Park”.

5. For the first few years, the shops on Main Street were occupied by outside vendors who rented the space from Disney.

6. You won’t find alcohol anywhere at Disneyland or the Magic Kingdom, with one exception: the private, members-only Club 33 that’s tucked away in New Orleans Square at Disneyland.

7. The monorail that opened in Tomorrowland in 1959 was the first daily-operating monorail in the Western Hemisphere.

8. Mickey himself (and his posse) used to climb the Matterhorn every day, several times a day. This no longer occurs.

9. Tickets were different than they are now – a park ticket now gives you access to whatever ride you want to ride, however many times you can manage to ride it. But until 1982, guests paid to get in and also purchased a coupon book of tickets. Tickets were labeled A-D (E was added later). A tickets were small rides, B tickets were a bit larger, C tickets were pretty typical rides (such as the Tea Cups), and D tickets were the thrillers (the Matterhorn). These were later upgraded to E tickets. Sometimes, you’ll still hear people refer to roller coasters and exciting rides as “E-ticket rides”.

10. Disneyland has had three unscheduled closures since it opened 53 years ago – when JFK was assassinated, when some Vietnam protesters took over Tom Sawyer’s Island, and the day after 9/11.

Billy Joel Bids Goodbye to Shea Stadium

What seemed like the entire population of Long Island showed up at New York’s Shea Stadium for the first of Billy Joel’s two-night send-off to the home of the New York Mets last night. From the opening song, Joel played to the occasion, altering the lyrics of “Miami 2017″ to “They said the Mets can stay, but they can’t play at Shea.” For three hours, Joel occupied the center-field stage, playing a hits-filled set that had the vast majority of the sold-out stadium of 63,000 singing along note for note. Though he frequently sipped from a white mug perched on his grand piano and spritzed his throat with spray, Joel’s clear voice never wavered, even after spirited versions of “Allentown” and “The Ballad of Billy the Kid.” Regardless, he had some relief pitching in the form of three special guests that brought the crowd to their feet.As he banged out the opening piano chords of “New York State of Mind,” Joel introduced his first guest of the night, crooner Tony Bennett. Bennett’s powerful voice filled the open-air stadium as he traded verses with the Piano Man. After Bennett left the stage to applause usually reserved for a David Wright home run, Joel led his band through another five songs — including “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)” and a touching “Goodnight Saigon” with a full military chorus — before introducing his next special guest. “I hear they play this song a lot at proms. I didn’t go to the prom, because I didn’t graduate,” Joel said before introducing “This is the Time” and guest guitarist John Mayer, who added Clapton-esque flourishes to the usually subdued piano ballad. After “Keeping the Faith” and a medley of “Stand by Me” and “An Innocent Man,” Joel relinquished the microphone to his next guest, Don Henley, who led the band in a rousing performance of “Boys of Summer.”

Throughout the evening, Joel celebrated the Beatles, who played the first concert of their 1965 tour at Shea Stadium. “I want to thank the Beatles for letting us use their room,” Joel remarked. The tribute began when Joel segued from “River of Dreams” into “A Hard Day’s Night,” and later included “Please Please Me” and “She Loves You.” His final guest of the evening, John Mellencamp, dug into his catalog, performing a rousing version of “Pink Houses” with an ad-libbed line about rising gas prices. It was at this point that fans in the upper deck noticed that the stadium was actually rocking, leading some to fear the stadium might come crashing down a little sooner than its demolition date. The swaying only got more severe when Joel strapped on his electric guitar for his two heaviest songs, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” and “It’s Still Rock & Roll to Me.” For his encore, Joel played an additional five songs, including “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” and a “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” sing-along that turned into the crowd favorite “Piano Man,” with the band dropping out to let the crowd serenade the man who’d provided them with so many beloved hits over the years. Joel will play center field for Mets again Friday when he wraps up “The Last Play at Shea.”  (From Rolling Stone)

Listen to Billy Joel - Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway) MP4

Find Your iPhone 3G

Do you want the new iPhone but are unsure if your Apple store will have it in stock? Please click here to find the nearest iPhone in the style you want.

Randy Newman Returns With First Album In Nine Years

Randy Newman is set to release his first album of new material in nine years. “Harps and Angels,” produced by Mitchell Froom and Lenny Waronker, arrives via Nonesuch on Aug. 5. “A Few Words in Defense of My Country,” a single released exclusively to iTunes last year, will be included in the track list. Newman’s 2003 hits collection, “The Randy Newman Songbook: Vol. 1,” was the singer/songwriter’s last release and first for Nonesuch. His last original set, “Bad Love,” was released in 1999.

 

Here is the track list for “Harps and Angels”:

 

Harps and Angels
Losing You
Laugh and Be Happy
A Few Words in Defense of My Country
A Piece of the Pie
Easy Street
Korean Parents
Only a Girl
Potholes
Feels Like Home

Listen to Randy Newman - Feels Like Home MP3

An Interview With Alan Moore

About two years ago, Warner Bros. announced that 300 director Zack Snyder would be adapting that gold standard of comics, Watchmen, into a feature film. The response was nothing short of orgiastic — from just about everyone except Watchmen’s own scribe, Alan Moore, who remains ambivalent about all the hoopla. The 54-year-old writer and co-creator of such seminal and erudite works as From Hell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen(both of which were adapted into eagerly anticipated movies that failed to match the quality of Moore’s source material) has a tangled history with the entertainment business. Even in a time when comics creators are more influential than ever, Moore simply wants to be left alone.

It’s no surprise that Moore has been accused of being comics’ Orson Welles — exceedingly talented, if profoundly prickly — and perhaps in certain incidents he’s earned that description. But when EW phoned him at his home in Northampton, England, we encountered a very different creature, one not unlike (if we can be so bold) his DC Comics character from 1983, Swamp Thing. Like the gentle giant who fought abominable invaders to save his wetland digs, the soft-spoken, somewhat reclusive Moore (himself an imposing figure, what with his curtain of hair and thicket of beard) battles Hollywood producers and mainstream comics publishers — fiscally minded forces he perceives as sullying his creative properties. In this wide-ranging conversation, Moore talks in depth about those struggles, as well as about the new Watchmen movie, his upcoming League of Extraordinary Gentlemen installment, his next novel, magic, his favorite TV shows, singing along to South Park, and whether he’ll ever shave his beard.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Don’t you have the slightest curiosity about what Watchmen director Zack Snyder is doing with your work?
ALAN MOORE: I would rather not know.

He’s supposed to be a very nice guy.
He may very well be, but the thing is that he’s also the person who made 300. I’ve not seen any recent comic book films, but I didn’t particularly like the book 300. I had a lot of problems with it, and everything I heard or saw about the film tended to increase [those problems] rather than reduce them: [that] it was racist, it was homophobic, and above all it was sublimely stupid. I know that that’s not what people going in to see a film like 300 are thinking about but…I wasn’t impressed with that…. I talked to [director] Terry Gilliam in the ’80s, and he asked me how I would make Watchmen into a film. I said, ”Well actually, Terry, if anybody asked me, I would have said, ‘I wouldn’t.”’ And I think that Terry [who aborted his attempted adaptation of the book] eventually came to agree with me. There are things that we did with Watchmen that could only work in a comic, and were indeed designed to show off things that other media can’t.

Do you think that any good can come of comics movies?
I increasingly fear that nothing good can come of almost any adaptation, and obviously that’s sweeping. There are a couple of adaptations that are perhaps as good or better than the original work. But the vast majority of them are pointless.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You haven’t enjoyed any comics adaptations? Even the indie films?
ALAN MOORE: There are none that leap to mind. I hear that the American Splendor film was pretty good. I didn’t go and see the film; I waited until Harvey [Pekar] and [his wife] Joyce came over to our house — so I got the live talk. We got to show them all around town — that was, for me, better than the film.

Has Warner Bros. tried to contact you about Watchmen?
No, they’ve all been told not to. They get the message…. I don’t want anyone who works for DC comic books to contact me ever again, or I’ll change my number…. And I only started to get upset when I found out they [DC Comics] were trying to rob me of a couple thousand pounds. It was over the Watchmen merchandising back in the ’80s, and they kind of eventually said, Oh, yeah, I suppose you do deserve this money. But by that time the damage was done. The only reason I ended up working for them again, during the ABC period from ‘99-’04, [was because] I had already signed the contracts. [Editor's note: DC Comics President and Publisher Paul Levitz responds: ''We've had our disagreements with Alan over the years, but we remain great fans of his talent and would be happy to work with him in the future if he's ever inclined.'']

Is there anything anyone could offer you — possibly outside DC and Warner Bros. — that could interest you in Hollywood?
There’s nothing that could get me interested in Hollywood again. And, increasingly, there’s nothing that could get me interested in the American comics industry again. I’m going to be doing more comics bits in the future, but that will most certainly be with [his new publisher] Top Shelf or [an indie] company like Top Shelf. Hollywood and American comics, I have given them a chance, and I think 20 years is long enough. If they were going to deliver, they would have done it by now.

You, yourself, wrote a movie script in the ’80s, Fashion Beast.
I did, which was mercifully never itself brought to the screen. I was doing it to see if I could write a screenplay, and to hang out with Malcolm McLaren [the Sex Pistols impresario, who commissioned it]. Which is always a fun prospect.

What is it like when Alan Moore and Malcolm McLaren hang out?
It’s kind of about as amusing and cynical as you might expect.

He’s considered by some to be the great evil music Svengali.
I’m not saying that other people may not have completely different relationships with Malcolm — and, indeed, from reading most of the Sex Pistols biographies, I assume that that’s probably the case. But speaking only of my relationship with him: He was an awful lot of fun, he seemed full of ideas, and I got paid for a film which never came out, so I was very happy with the arrangement! But the thing is, Malcolm was also coming up with original ideas for these movies, which is something else that attracted me to him…. I see a kind of degeneration, if you like, in terms of the imagination that those pioneers back in the 19th century were gifted with, and kind of recycled ideas that we tend to get served up today…. So often any film that comes out is going to be a sequel or a remake of a film that’s previously existed — and I’ve said this before, that we will see Johnny Depp playing Cap’n Crunch. It will eventually get down to breakfast cereal mascots!

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Whereas The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Vol. III): Century [the third installment of Moore's Victorian-sleuthing comic, due out in April 2009] certainly stokes the imagination. Why make it span three different eras — 1910, 1968, and the present?
ALAN MOORE: [Artist] Kevin O’Neill and I realized we had two or three powerful stories. It struck us that we might be able to link them together and make a three-part narrative, so that each would stand on it’s own and thus relieve readers from any kind of painful cliffhanger between issues. And yet the three stories would link up into an overarching narrative involving the occult.

How do these three chapters split up?
The first book surrounds the coronation of King George, which was also the time The Threepenny Opera was set, a comet was passing overhead, and there was a general feeling of dread in the air. We’re also focusing on the occult fictions written around the time…[like] Aleister Crowley’s [1917] book, Moonchild, where the protagonists are attempting to create a magically produced child that is going to usher in a new era. [Protagonist] Mina and her associates are trying to stop this from happening. The second book [revolves around] that sort of peculiar 1960s melding of pop-star psychedelic lifestyles, fashionable interest in occultism, and to some degree, at least in London, crime. We’ve got it all centered around a big rock concert at Hyde Park. Running all the way through this is the continuing threat of the production of a magical child who, by this time, we are fairly certain, is the Antichrist. That second book ends very badly. And they’re not having a lot of luck. The third part is set in 2008 when, basically, the League is in pieces — barely exists anymore — and this turns out to be the time at which the Antichrist project finally pays off, and this magical child finally manifests in quite a terrifying form.

You’ve moved publishers, from DC Comics to Top Shelf. Do you think that’s going to affect your work?
I think it’s already affecting it. Both me and Kevin have noticed that this third volume is very different from the first two [published by DC Comics]. It’s almost as if, while we were working within the confines of mainstream comics, we were perhaps unconsciously following the basic formulae of mainstream comics. There’s sort of an overall ethos in comics, in boys’ adventure fiction, that you must keep the action moving, which is not really the standards of serious drama or literature. So for this third volume of League, we’re pacing it differently. It’s got a lot more depth and resonance, a lot more drama for the money. And I think that the payoff of this first volume is that it will be frightening enough to make the reader forget the slower pace of its opening pages.

Tell me about your upcoming novel, Jerusalem.
This is probably taking up most of my time at the moment. I’ve been working on it for a couple of years, and it’ll probably take me another couple of years. I’ve just passed the two-thirds mark; I did a word count and it was 400,000 words, which means that the end result is gonna be somewhere between half and three-fourths of a million!

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What is it about?
ALAN MOORE: My first novel [Voice of the Fire, released in the U.S. in 2004] was based upon Northamptonshire [where he grew up], over the course of some 6,000 years. I thought that with this one I would focus in upon this relatively tiny section of Northamptonshire called the Boroughs. So I started to connect different things. I remembered an incident during my childhood when my younger brother, Mike, had choked at the age of 3 or 4, on a cough sweet…and he stopped breathing. Because it was a fairly rundown neighborhood — there wasn’t a telephone anywhere and nobody owned a car — a man who lived next door to us who had a vegetable delivery service drove my brother and mother to the hospital. It would have taken about 10 minutes, even at a generous estimate; apparently after two-and-a-half minutes I think it’s brain death. However, he was back with us by the end of the week. I’ve been having some thoughts myself, about life and death, where we go when we die.

Is death a fearful thing to you?
Not at all. Hopefully, if I do this book well enough, it will perhaps take some of the anxiety off of other people’s shoulders…. I started to formulate the theory, the idea [of] transience: that time is passing, that life is going away somewhere, that this is an illusion, albeit a persistent one. And I think I can explain that pretty well somewhere in the course of this 2,000-page leviathan.

Is there is an afterlife?
Well, we may not need one. That, just conceivably, we might get this life forever — you’ll have to read the book to get the whole thing, but I tend to think that it’s a pretty watertight theory: That you don’t get reincarnated as somebody else, but that you get reincarnated as yourself, over and over again. You have the same thoughts, and you never know you’ve done this [before], except for those little moments of déjà vu.

Do you ever relax and just watch television?
Selectively, mostly on DVD. The absolute pinnacle of anything I’ve seen recently has got to be The Wire. It’s the most stunning piece of television that has ever come out of America, possibly the most stunning piece of television full-stop.

That’s a great example of storytelling that takes its time.
Absolutely, that is grown-up television! It’s novelistic. You get to find out about all these tiny different aspects of Baltimore, to build up a huge picture of the city with all of its intricacies — from the wharf side, to the kids in the projects, to the power structure with the boardrooms and police department and governor’s office. And it’s got some great writers: It’s got George Pelecanos and David Simon. And so many wonderful characters, Bubbles, Omar. So yeah, everything else looks pretty lame next to The Wire.

What did you think of the ending?
We’ve not seen the final season yet. I’m quite excited — don’t tell me anything about it!

With something like The Wire, do you ever think, I might not mind writing for TV?
That would be a possibility — but there again, I know how hard I have to fight. Apparently, HBO is being absolute princes with regards to The Wire. It’s never had huge audiences, but they’ve kept funding it. They realized that this is a timeless, prestige program. This is one of the reasons why I’ve withdrawn from the comics industry: I do not want to deal with the people in these various industries anymore. But if that could somehow magically be arranged, if I could think of a good enough story, and if it had a chance of being the same caliber as The Wire — then yes, I would perhaps think about it. I do also tend to keep up on comedy programs.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Which comedies do you like watching?
ALAN MOORE: Well, over here, at the moment, we’ve had some very good ones. There’s The Mighty Boosh, which is [Laughs] idiotically wonderful, childish, surreal, fantasy. There’s also a show called Snuffbox, and it’s one of the darkest, funniest comedies I’ve seen in ages. And I’m a very big fan of South Park.

Have you seen the ”Trapped in the Closet” episode?
[Sings] ”I’m trapped in the closet!” Yeah, that was terrific. I thought the way that South Park handled that bit with the Scientologists was wonderful. I was also quite heartened the other day when watching the news to see that there were demonstrations outside the Scientology headquarters over here, and that they suddenly flashed to a clip showing all these demonstrators wearing V for Vendetta [Guy Fawkes] masks. That pleased me. That gave me a warm little glow.

Are you still practicing magic?
Well, yes, practice makes perfect.

How did you first get into it?
I was turning 40 and thinking, Oh dear, I’m probably going to have one of those midlife crisis things which always just bore the hell out of everybody. So it would probably be better if, rather than just having a midlife crisis, I just went completely screaming mad and declared myself to be a magician. That would, at least, be more colorful. So, I announced, on the night of my 40th birthday party — probably after more beers than I should have had — that, ”from this point on, I’m going to become a magician.” And then the next morning you have to think, Oh, what have I said now? Are we going to have to go through with this? So I had to go about finding out what a magician was and what they did.

What is the end result of practicing magic? Is it a type of spirituality?
The mystics all seem to want to go straight to the Godhead; the magicians tend to be more curious. They want to explore all of the other aspects of the universe. For me, there is very little difference between magic and art. To me, the ultimate act of magic is to create something from nothing: It’s like when the stage magician pulls the rabbit from the hat. And then you can turn that idea into a film, a book, a painting, a piece of music, something that other people can experience. That in itself is stunning. And I suppose this is one of the reasons I got into magic, because I was tired of ducking that question that people always ask writers, which is, ”Where do you get your ideas from?”

San Diego Comic-Con is approaching. Have you ever attended it?
No…well, I mean, I stopped going in the late ’80s. I just thought, I don’t really want to do this anymore, and I don’t really see why I am doing it. I did find it a bit overwhelming and creepy.

Well, you’re a god there.
And this is the last way that I want to be treated. The reason that I live in Northampton is because everyone here is kind of used to me. I mean, yeah, I do get a gratifying smattering of people coming up to me in the street and thanking me for me work, and shaking me hand and just wanting to wish me well.

Although if you shaved your beard and cut your hair — no one would recognize you!
No one would recognize me.

Would you ever do that?
No, just the laziness that has enabled my beard to get to this length is not a habit that I’m going to shake now.

But it would be your greatest act of magic: ”Where did Alan Moore go!?”
Well, I saw the possibility, of course. I’ve always got this option. So should I need to disappear, then, if you see a sort of bald guy with a really bad shaving rash going around somewhere, then that will probably be me, yeah. (Reprinted from Entertainment Weekly)

Stephen King Goes to the Movies Book Cover

Here is the cover for the upcoming book, “Stephen King Goes to the Movies” which is scheduled to be released on January 27th, 2009. The #1 bestselling author reflects on the filming of five of his most popular short stories. Those movies are The Shawshank Redemption, 1408, Children of the Corn, The Mangler, and Hearts in Atlantis. The 400 page paperback book includes an introduction, his personal commentary, and behind-the-scenes insights by Stephen King.

World’s Most Crowded Swimming Pool

Thousands of swimmers crowd into a pool in Penglai in Sichuan, western China .  Swimming laps is not an option.

 

Hot Dog: The Quiz

July is National Hot Dog Month so today’s quiz is comprised of ten questions concerning hot dogs as both a food item and a pop culture reference.  Take the quiz here.

 

 

J.J. Abrams Talks Star Trek

For the past several months getting any information out of the always enthusiastically secretive J.J. Abrams camp about his re-launch of the classic Star Trek series for the big screen has been about as easy as getting light out of a black hole.

But when ComingSoon.net cornered Abrams at a big Hollywood event this week, we were surprised that he seemed finally ready to reveal a few tiny, tantalizing hints about his version of the final frontier, as well as his feeling about the franchise and his film’s old school standard bearer – and we didn’t even have to pull a phaser on him.

CS: You’ve said that you didn’t start out as an uber-fan of “Star Trek,” but you quickly became a fan. Can you talk in general terms about what you fell in love with about the whole franchise?
Abrams: I fell in love with the relationships between the characters. I fell in love with the characters. The idea of – it’s so funny because you hear something so often and it loses it’s meaning. But “space, the final frontier” – if you actually consider space as uncharted territory there’s something about the idea of these people, because any ship flying by isn’t going to get you excited. It’s who’s on the ship that matters. I feel like these characters actually going out into that nothingness and finding something is great. Having lived with it now and gotten to know the characters and worked with amazing actors who portrayed them, it made me fall in love with that notion, that idea that for some reason never struck me the way that “Twilight Zone” did.

CS: Are you ready to talk about the Jennifer Morrison character? There’s been a lot of speculation and confusion as to exactly who she’s playing.
Abrams: She is so great. I’ll just say that she plays Kirk’s mother. She’s awesome. Great.

CS: Does the film feature many flashback sequences? We also know that Winona Ryder is playing Spock’s mother.
Abrams: Yeah, most of the movie is not - I wouldn’t call them flashbacks, but she’s in a great sequence and is so good. I love her.

CS: What can you say about about working with Leonard Nimoy?
Abrams: It was really just a dream experience, working with him. He is everything you want him to be. He’s funny and incredibly thoughtful and was surprisingly open and receptive to direction. He’s just got an amazing wife and family and working with him was literally… Like the other day we were doing some ADR and he was there and because we weren’t shooting anymore I was standing there and I just looked at him while he was doing his thing. I wanted to burn it into my head. It was so great to get to work with that guy. He’s just an amazing man and is terrific in the movie.

CS: Is he a major presence in the film?
Abrams: Yeah. I think he’s a major presence in any scene he’s in. He’s terrific.

Star Trek opens in theaters on May 8, 2009. (From ComingSoon.net)

 

Mathieu Ratthe Wants To Direct The Talisman

Mathieu Ratthe is trying to get Steven Spielberg’s attention.

The  Canadian filmmaker dreams of directing an adaptation of The Talisman, the 1984 fantasy novel written by Stephen King and Peter Straub. The trouble is, Spielberg has held on to the rights for nearly 25 years, and the story has never made it to the screen.

Tired of waiting, Ratthe did the only thing he could think of: He filmed a six-and-a-half-minute demo for the film and posted it on YouTube. Surprisingly, it’s pretty stunning. You may recognize lead actor Cameron Bright from Birth and X-Men: The Last Stand, and the visual effects were created by the same company that worked on 300.

“I e-mailed him, and it looks like he paid for it all on his own,” writes Pop reader Michael R.

Whether Ratthe’s Talisman trailer will lead to a Spielberg meeting is unclear, but there’s no doubt it will get him noticed by some folks in the industry. (Reprinted from Pop Candy)

Amy Poehler To Join Post-’Office’ Show

“Saturday Night Live” star Amy Poehler is in final negotiations to join the cast of the new post-“Office” laffer from Greg Daniels and Mike Schur.

Series, despite initially being called an “Office” spinoff, isn’t expected to be one after all — confirming speculation that the show would not be an extension of the original but a whole new series.

Poehler would join the already-cast Aziz Ansari, who became the series’ first cast member last month.

In recent weeks Daniels and Schur have been busy mapping out the show, which is set to bow this winter in the plum Thursday night 9:30 p.m. timeslot behind “The Office.”

Poehler, who hosts “SNL’s” “Weekend Update” segment with Seth Meyers, has been with the sketch skein since 2001. She also recently appeared in the feature “Baby Mama” and provides the lead voice to the animated entry “The Mighty B.” (Reprinted from Variety)

Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road

The Rocket Man just hooked up with the ice cream guys.

Elton John has joined the rarified and rather delicious ranks of Stephen Colbert, Jerry Garcia, Monty Python, Dave Matthews and Phish, becoming the latest celebrity inspiration for a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor: Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road.

The limited-edition treat will be rolled out for one week only later this month to coincide with John’s first concert in the pint purveyors’ home base of Vermont, the last state in the U.S. the Brit rock star has yet to perform in.

Proceeds from the flavor will benefit the rocker’s own AIDS foundation.

“I can’t think of a more fun way to celebrate playing my 50th state, Vermont, than having Ben & Jerry’s create a special ice cream, Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road, with all my favorite flavors and ingredients,” John said.

“I’m especially pleased that they will be donating the proceeds to the Elton John AIDS Foundation.”

The custom flavor was concocted with input from John himself and consists of “an outrageous symphony of decadent chocolate ice cream, peanut butter cookie dough, butter brickle and white chocolate chunks.”

“We’re thrilled with the final combination, plus we’ve got the Rocket Man’s seal of approval,” Ben’s partner-in-crime (and business), Jerry Greenfield, said.

The flavor will be available in Vermont Scoop Shops for just one week only, July 18-25, in anticipation of John’s Vermont show on July 21.

Further sweetening the pot, the coneheads will also play tunes from John’s latest album, Rocket Man: The Definitive Hits, as well as the DVD of his recent 60th birthday concert at Madison Square Garden, in their stores that week.

GigaPan Technology - Amazing Zoom

Please click on this panoramic view of Yankee Stadium which was shot using GigaPan technology. You can zoom in on any detail – from Alex Rodriguez approaching the plate in the first inning against the Red Sox to the façade of the new Yankee Stadium beyond leftfield. Taken by a robotic camera, the photo was shot over the course of 10 minutes and consists of 124 frames stitched together. Carnegie Mellon developed the GigaPan technology last year in collaboration with NASA.