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Seymour Skinner Endgame Simpsons

Endgame – James Frey makes millions ripping off ideas!

Endgame Simpsons

And so we enter… endgame!


James Frey is back in the news because Fox has optioned his upcoming book series Endgame. If the name James Frey is vaguely familiar to you, that’s because you might recognize him from:

A- Being the author of A Million Little Pieces, a fabricated account of James Frey’s life on drugs that was championed by Oprah, until she found out he was a liar. Then he was confronted by Oprah on a very special episode.

B- The “author” of I Am Number Four and related books, which was turned into a forgettable movie that maybe broke even, but certainly didn’t set the movie world afire.

C- The word “author” above is in quotes because James Frey is actually the head of Full Fathom Five, which is basically a YA fiction writing sweatshop, where ghostwritten YA novels are pushed out with pseudonyms on the cover.

“His” new book series Endgame is totally not The Hunger Games:

“In a world similar to Earth, there are 12 bloodlines, or races. Each bloodline has a champion between the ages of 13 and 17 who is trained as a warrior and is always ready to do battle. When they turn 18, the teen warrior behind them gets promoted. This has been the case for hundreds of years, but no one remembers why — they’re always ready for some sort of battle to take place, but it never does. But the tradition continues. And then one day they’re called to fight, and all the bloodlines but the winners will be exterminated. They’re fighting to be the last race.”

Why anyone would think that sound just like another popular film franchise is a complete mystery to me. It’s Racial Genocide: The YA Adventures!

He got $2 million for this. $2,000,000!!! Might I remind you book stores are overflowing with YA books that are far less direct ripoffs than The Hunger Endgames.

Speaking of mysteries, Google is mysteriously involved in this book to film deal. Exactly how, no one knows. It is a mystery, a Google Mystery.

via Deadline and LATimes

BFM Big Furry Monster Magic

Magic: The Gathering taps the movie franchise fever!

BFM Big Furry Monster Magic

But will they get Mana Burned? (Yes, that got errataed away, I’m Old School Magic!) Magic: The Gathering is optioned to become a flick now. If you recall, Wizards of the Coast is owned by Hasbro now, and Hasbro is turning all their stuff into movies. And The Hobbit is making lots of money, therefore Magic will become a movie. The goal is to turn it into a huge franchise and make billions of dollars at the box office, and probably billions of other dollars through increased sales of Magic: The Gathering.

The cards have a huge back story of all sorts of cool events to pull from, which means they’ll probably ignore it all and instead just graft references upon some existing but terrible script. Seriously, the Brother’s War, the Yawgmoth cults, Fallen Empires, the Weatherlight, Time Spiral, Goblin Bowling Teams, the existing books, countless lore on cards and artwork. It’s got a hugely rich history and literally any sort of entry point you need to make all sorts of stories. But at least we’ll get to make jokes about “tapping”, even though Coors Light beat everyone decades ago with Tap the Rockies.

20th Century Fox is the studio we can all blame, and Simon Kinberg is going to be the producer behind it all. We got our eyes on you! Don’t make me break out the Lightning Bolts, I don’t care if they’re banned. I’m Old School Magic!

via THR

Muppets Most Wanted

Muppets Most Wanted – Outrage Trailer


Muppets Most Wanted is killing it with the twitter trailers, slicing down the Golden Globes and studio advertizing in the subverted way only the Muppets are brave enough to do. Which is sad, really, but hooray for the Muppets and hooray for trailers and fake Twitter accounts and me posting everything they release because I love the Muppets! If only I could click that link, I need to make $2000 while staying at home. It would be cool…

Fans across the internet are outraged that Muppets Most Wanted wasn’t nominated for over 247 awards. See some of the chatter in this new video and see Muppets Most Wanted, coming to theaters March 21.

Links Complex

Hey, it’s about time I put up a new wall of links. In fact, I had so many that I had saved in various drafts I combined several together for this entry, and will get a separate entry that is links to cool posts on movie blogs later in the week. Learn from me and finish your articles! But let’s get on with the show…

**An awesome graphic about gender inequality in film. Especially relevant since this is the first time in forty years a female-lead movie was tops at the box office.

**Can it be December already so I can watch the new Jiang Wen movie? Gone with the Bullets (一步之遙) will be the followup to Let the Bullets Fly, which was spectacularly awesome. Jiang stars along with Ge You, Shu Qi, Wang Zhiwen, Wen Zhang, and Zhou Yun, and the plot involves a beauty pageant.

**In yet another short gets optioned into a feature film news, Beyond has been optioned by SyFy. Beyond was created by Raphael Rogers, who wrote and directed it on a budget of $1000. Beyond is about a woman who can teleport across space and time, and is the last of her family.

You can watch Beyond here, it is less than 9 minutes long.

**Everyone’s favorite mobile game that’s just the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark will hit the big screen, where hopefully it will be more than just 90 minutes of the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Temple Run becomes the latest of small scale games to get a movie option (preceded by Angry Birds), thanks to Warner Bros., who are increasingly desperate to find a new franchise to milk. Speaking of which, I need to rewatch Raiders of the Lost Ark….

**South African thriller iNumber Number will get an American remake by Universal. No word yet on if writer/director Donovan Marsh will be involved. iNumber Number is about an honest cop who goes bad after being cheated out of a promotion. Soon he has bigger problems when the gang he robs wants revenge.

**I am very excited about the Flawed Dogs animated movie, based on the books by Berkeley Breathed, specifically The Shocking Raid on Westminster.
Flawed Dogs

**Nickelodeon will bring us a film called Boogeymen, where a kid teams with the Boogeyman to investigate paranormal activity. I guess it’s sort of like that old Fred Savage movie Little Monsters, except they do Scooby-Doo stuff instead of just act silly. Boogeymen is based on a pitch from John Sullivan, and Howard Deutch will direct. Howard Deutch directed Pretty in Pink and several random sequels: The Odd Couple 2, Grumpier Old Men, and The Whole Ten Yards

**I’ve been arguing this for years, nice to see it getting some actual attention. It is possible you are made up of more than one genome, due to absorbing other genomes in the womb. It’s a type of chimerism that turns out to be a lot less rare than previously thought.

**From Pyongyang to Mars: Sci-fi, Genre, and Literary Value in North Korea

**Mel Gibson, Taylor Lautner and the 20-Year Effort to Make a ‘Stretch Armstrong’ Movie

**The Adventures of Pete and Pete is back (sort of) in podcast form!

**The MPAA, RIAA, and various ISPs have come up with their own “downloading is bad” school curriculum for California. A bit of advice: unless this crap is on the state exams, no teacher is going to bother. Though I wouldn’t put it past one of those “charter” schools after the MPAA gives them a sizable donation. Because they’re greedy cesspools.

**The awesome story of young Russian WWII heroine Zinaida Portnova

**Explore hundreds of old movie magazines for free thanks to Lantern/The Media History Digital Library! Say goodbye to your free time!

**After the Cinema of Disgust – A close reading of the renegade New Wave of Tamil Cinema

**Remember in The Wizard of Oz when Scarecrow had a gun?

**Air Bud is real!

**Jon Sorensen – Personal recollections and impressions of working on Alien

**The Great Lester proves even a dummy can go to jail!
The Great Lester

Godaizer short

Godaizer Animated Short. (Full Length 19 min version.) from hilscreate on Vimeo.

Filmmmaker Hillary Yeo put up his animated short film Godaizer in 2011, but if you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you! Godaizer which features giant robots and monsters. At only 19 minutes long, it’s not like you need to get back to filling out those TPS cover sheets that urgently…

Hillary Yeo is a Singapore-based special effects artist, and concept designer Ray Toh is also based out of Singapore.

The objective to make this short is really simple. I wanted to make a animation about the giant robots and monsters from my childhood and memories of living in a kampong (village) with my grandfather and many cousins.

Obviously I hope to have some awesome fights between an giant robot and monster. While at the same time have a story that can be related to those early memories.

Main influence for this is the old giant movies and the old box covers of model kits and toys as well as the old shophouses and wide open spaces that I remembered.

Nothing too deep or complicated. Hope simply just to entertain without feeling having their intelligence insulted and that people feel its worth spending 19 mins of their lives watching it.

Our website is at godaizer.com. See the “making of” at godaizer.com/videos/making-of-godaizer/

Note: In Singlish/Hokkien/Cantonese with some English Subtitles.

Directed and Produced by Hillary Yeo. With support from Media Development Authority of Singapore.
Sound and Music by StereoImage Pte Ltd

Godaizer Robot

Fox Lover

The Fox Lover (Review)

The Fox Lover

aka 白狐 aka Arctic Fox
Fox Lover
2013
Written by ???
Directed by Niu Chao-Yang

Fox Lover
Another effects-laden Mainland China film about fairy spirits, these have been all been slogs, and I was expecting another mediocre effort. The shocking thing is The Fox Lover is actually good! The freedom of not being a direct copy of one of the classic 80s/90s Hong Kong films has given it some freedom to still be loyal to the tone of the fox spirit movies, but to be able to do its own thing. The other key to success was it isn’t as big budget effects as it is advertising. There are a few scenes, but most of the effects are more practical, and the lack of money means they need to rely on things like the story and acting.

The Fox Lover is based on one of the tales in Pu Songling’s Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio/Liaozhai Zhiyi, the origin for a huge chunk of supernatural ghost lover stories in Chinese film – such as Erotic Ghost Story, Painted Skin, A Touch of Zen, and A Chinese Ghost Story.
Fox Lover
I think things went a bit too far overboard as far as female characters getting a raw deal is concerned. But then practically every character has something bad happen to them. It’s even a disclaimer in the film itself – romances with fox spirits end in tragedy. The only reason the mother fox is offering her daughter to a human is from a sense of repayment for saving her life long ago. It also helps Lord Wang out, as his son Wang Yuen Feng’s mental condition will keep him from finding a human bride who would want to be with him (I don’t think that’s entirely true, as the Wang family has money and there would be many poorer families that would give multiple daughters. But I guess that’s not as good of a choice socially has a hot fox bride!)
Fox Lover
Through a series of problems, the white fox family is drawn into battle with Sea Bat King, who murders Lord Wang as revenge for protecting his village from the Sea Bats. Madam Yu vows to avenge her friend’s death, but the Sea Bats are too powerful to fight without causing danger to her entire family.
Fox Lover

Willow (Gillian Chung Yan-Tung) – Called “crazy” by the other fox sisters, Willow is a strong-willed spirit who delights in causing mischief. Her hobby is ripping up kites. Willow’s color theme is subtle turquoise with touches of lavender and green. One of her closest friends is Rattan the tree. Does not initially think that Wang Yeun Feng is the man that she should make body contacts in cloud and rain with.
Wang Yuen Feng (Julian Cheung Chi-Lam) – The adopted son of the magistrate of Cangcheng, Lord Wang (Wang Yuen Feng was a foundling, and came with sword that no one can unsheathe) Wang Yuen Feng has been afflicted with an illness that turned him into an idiot. Has magic powers that need to be unlocked, and can only be unlocked by making love to a woman he loves.
Madam Yu (Kara Hui Ying-Hung) – White Fox Fairy Spirit who lives in Fox Fairy Valley with her daughters. As she was saved by Lord Wang 40 years ago, she offers to betroth one of her daughters to Lord Wang’s son. Has the Power of 9 Tail, though transfers it to her daughter Willow.
Ling (Abby Yin Guo-Er) – A Human girl adopted by Madam Yu, her color scheme is green and she is usually serving tea to the other girls.
Sea Bat King (Gao Hu) – Lord of Sea Bat Island and leader of a gang of blood drinking demons call Sea Bats. They are like vampires, with long claws on all fingers. Most are formless and black clothed, except adviser Wisdom Spirit. Sea Bat King can morph into a more demonic form that looks straight out of early 1990s practical makeup effects. Sea Bat King hates Lord Wang, who prevented him from feeding on the inhabitants of his town. His vengeance sets into motion a war between the Sea Bats and the Fox Spirit family.
Ji Yao (Guo Ming-Xiang) – A cousin of Wang who becomes the de facto head of the Wang family after Lord Wang is kidnapped and murdered. Wants a fox fairy spirit of his own. He starts out a coward, but finds bravery.
Fox Lover

I’ll get those Hobbits!