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InBiology, Movie News, Science

Vote for Links!

April 1, 2013By

Vote For Rowlf

it’s that time again to give you the good stuff, in handy clickable link format!

**FourDk hunts for The Stolen Airship!

**Pre-Code gets Illicit!

**TurbanDecay discusses Popeye and Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp!

**SoftFilm drops some facts about Daisy Joe and Chinese in Hollywood!

**3 Guys 1 Movie plays some games in the Carnival of Souls!

**The Cultural Gutter discusses dreams and Adventure Time!

**BluePrint Review meets The Girl From Rio!

**the motion pictures races against Hot Rods to Hell!

**Xsmarkthespot discuss retronerds and geek culture!

**Stephen Chow is rumored to star in a sequel to the latest Journey to the West film. Of course, he was rumored to start in the last one that he directed, and he doesn’t show up in it. There will also be more horror elements, and as the first one is sort of 50-50 horror-comedy, the new one might be scare-inducing. I’ll still watch…

**There will be a GI Joe 3. No word on how long this will get randomly delayed mere weeks before it’s set to open.

**The Biker Warrior Babe vs. The Zombie Babies From Hell made enough off IndieGoGo to get distribution online.

**If you like weird movie titles like that, remember there is also a Steampunk Samurai Biker Chick that filmed last year!

**The world needs more programs where a heroic white guy saves Asia, and we’re getting that again thanks to a remake of the Shogun tv miniseries (based on the novel by James Clavell). If heroic white guys saving the day aren’t your thing, you can also watch a heroic black football player get away with murder with an OJ Simpson miniseries. What company is giving us these gems? Fox, of course!

**Christina Applegate is rumored to be up for the role of Rusty Griswold’s wife in the new generation of National Lampoon’s Vacation films. Ed Helms is already cast as the new Rusty, who will be the one taking his family on vacation. And if you are wondering if Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo will appear, they are in talks now!

**Sex.Violence.FamilyValues is a 47 minute Singaporean flick banned in Singapore (until some scenes were deleted), but it just scored a US distribution. I’m not keen on paying to see such a short movie, though the fact it was banned/censored makes it more appealing. Though I’ll still wait for it on video.

**The Pete’s Dragon remake that has been rumored for ages has hit the point where they hired someone to make a script. David Lowery is the lucky ducky, and this Pete’s Dragon will ignore most of the story except the “core” and not be a musical. Will Disney drop the abused kid creating an “imaginary” dragon guardian angle and make this just a randomly dumb film? Or will they keep all that and make it all gritty? Considering Pete’s Dragon is the first film I remember seeing at a drive-in theater, it holds a special place in my heart. Which means I’ll burn down Disneyland if they fuck it up!!!

**Dwayne Johnson’s Luke Hobbs character from the Fast and Furious films will be getting his own spinoff movie. No further details at this time.

**We mentioned a movie called Orc Wars long ago, now it’s on Kickstarter with a few days left to hit its goal. So if you are into that sort of thing….

**But if you would rather give money to a film about a musical puppet fairy tale, that is also a choice thanks to The Princess Knight:

**Norigae is a movie about the scandal of Korean actresses being pimped out by their managers that lead to the suicide of actress Jang Ja-Yeon. AsianWiki has the trailer

**Here is a kick butt article about things in the Peruvian rain forest, including spiders that make huge decoy spiders, macaws licking clay, very hairy caterpillars, and a moth that uses a basket as a cocoon.
Caterpillar Peru

Until next time, remember to vote early and vote often!

InScience

2-Headed Shark Attack in real life!

March 25, 2013By

two headed shark fetus

Unlike the film 2-Headed Shark Attack from Asylum, this 2-headed shark is just a fetus that probably would have died. But life has found a way to borrow from SyFy movies.

This particular two-head is a bull shark embryo found inside a bull shark caught off the coast of Florida. The fisherman shared his find with scientists who published a paper on the specimen in the Journal of Fish Biology. Two headedness is called dicephalia, for those of you who want some big words to use to impress people in the bar after work. This is the first known 2-headed bull shark specimen.

The shark probably wouldn’t have lived because the two heads would cause problems when chasing prey, as well as a stunted body.

InDinosaurs and other extinct, Movie News, Science

Links With Cat Ears!

March 12, 2013By

Rina Takeda Battlecats

It’s that time again where I throw a bunch of links at you and you must click them all, Pokemon! Also some news bits that didn’t make the cut into getting their own posts dues to lazines— I mean, because I was busy. Yeah, that’s the ticket! So let’s get on with it!!!

**Monster Island Resort Podcast #95: The History of Mexploitation Cinema with Aaron Soto

**Like a Horrible Dream: Thoughts on the Mighty Kong

**Filmi Geek on Filmi Geek

**Film Dick battles The Slayer!

**FourDK goes on The Savage Hunt of King Stakh!

**Pre-Code takes a Hot Saturday!

**The Cultural Gutter ponders Catharsis Denied: when fiery doom is an anti-climax!

**Xsmarkthespot clues us in to Notable Canadian films of the 1970’s!

**Turban Decay discusses The Visitor!

**Pulp Curry turns the pages of Wake in Fright!

**Permission To Kill discusses Lee – the man (Lee Marvin) and the anthology that he inspired!

**Goodbye Like A Bullet tells us The Way of the Yakuza!

**100 years of Indian cinema: How Bombay became Bollywood – the silent era

**Why is The Adventures of Mighty Bug not playing anywhere near me???!?!

**Names are attached to the big screen version of Divergent, yet another Young Adult Dystopian Future novel turned film. Shailene Woodley is already attached to star, and now Maggie Q, Zoe Kravitz and Ansel Elgort are attached. In this Young Adult Dystopian Future, society is divided into factions based on traits like bravery. Basically the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter became Evil Overlord. So, of course, there is a love story between factions and rebellions and all that junk. Neil Burger is directing.

**Horrible Bosses 2 is on the way. Perhaps this go-around will have something funny beyond Motherfucker Jones? Speaking of which, Motherfucker Jones is not yet confirmed as returning, but he better be!

**Here is a 12 minute proof of concept short for Land of Giants, a steampunk martial arts film starring Mathis Landwehr. It’s another “make a short film to get funding to make a real film” film:

After the storm reduced our world to ruins, the Giants came to us, to punish those who would ever again lay their hands on the magic called “Electricity”.

A long time ago Crutch (Mathis Landwehr) challenged the Giants’ anger. His destroyed knee won’t let him forget the day, they took everything from him. So he ventured out to hunt and kill them.

**Debug is a future-set scifi thriller where six computer hackers sent to debug old computers on an abandoned space freighter must battle an AI that’s gone loopy. Killer loopy. Jeananne Goossen, Jason Momoa, Adam Butcher, Kjartan Hewitt, Sidney Leeder, Jaydn Wong, and Adrian Holmes. David Hewlett directs and Debug is due out in 2014.

**If you want to see some production photos of Wes Anderson‘s The Grand Budapest Hotel, click away!

**People in China are freaking out because former Category III star Diana Pang Dan (Erotic Ghost Story – Perfect Match and Rape Trap) is going to become a politician. Of course, America would freak out as well.

**If you thought Jack the Giant Slayer sucked, maybe you will like Asylum’s Jack the Giant Killer, where the giants are actual monsters! Jane March and Ben Cross star. Mark Atkins writes and directs.

**Wreck-It Ralph presents “Garlan Hulse: Where Potential Lives”

**Disney thinks the world needs yet another live-action Beauty and the Beast movie. Right, Beastly?

Disney is calling this film The Beast, and considering the subject matter of Trance–an art auctioneer is pummeled so badly by his criminal cohorts that a hypnotherapist is needed to coax out the memories of where he hid a priceless painting–indicates that this revisionist take on Beauty and the Beast could be a bit on the dark side.

No word on who will play Hank McCoy.

**Actress Charlie Yeung Choi-Nei has moved into writing/directing with the upcoming film Christmas Rose (聖誕玫瑰). Yeung spent five years writing the legal thriller, the film is about a sexual harassment case that quickly balloons out of control. Aaron Kwok is a former defense attorney turned prosecutor who helps handicapped piano teacher Jing (Kwai Lun Mei) sue her doctor Zhou (Chang Chen) for harassing her during a checkup. But Zhou is a respected physician and his defense attorney is Aaron Kwok’s replacement at his old firm. The trailer is here

paracamelus
**Giant camel bones belonging to a species of Paracamelus have been found in Northern Canada, the bones being identified due to collagen fingerprinting the collagen on the bones. The size of the bones show the species was 30% bigger than modern camels. Paracamelus is a type of ancient dromedary (one hump.) This is the first evidence of a High Arctic camel, though scientists have long suspected that camels had trades associated with arctic adaptation.
Via here and here
Image via

**bridezilla Charlie Powell
via Charlie Powell

Until next time!!!

InDinosaurs and other extinct, Movie News

Link Geniuses 3: Baby Squad Investigators

February 4, 2013By

Baby Geniuses 3

That’s right!


With that poster of impending doom, it’s time to once again launch into a news story link-o-rama!

**Welcome new TarsTarkas.NET contributor Donald Hallene!!! Donald’s work has appeared on Wag The Movie, EW has “borrowed” his tweets to use for an article, and he’s a fellow goon! Read his first article about the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and how it became influential enough to get a film! Or I will break you. Into many irregular-shaped pieces. This is not a joke!

**FourDK asks that important question, Ayna Tukhabi’un Al-Shams?

**Pre-Code is quiet, almost too quiet about All Quiet on the Western Front!

**Ninja Dixon puts an eye on The Cyclops!

**The Cultural Gutter discusses Superman and Masculinity!

**Congrats to Turkish romantic comedy Celal ile Ceren for rocketing to the bottom of the IMDB Bottom 100 list! You deserve it. From the look of the trailer, we’re now exporting Kevin Jameses across Europe!

**Once Jon Chu gets done “post-converting” GI Joe Retaliation (or whatever the fuck they’re really doing to it), he’ll be helming the adaptation of the Young Adult novel Matched by Ally Condie. It’s one of those books where in a dystopian future everyone is told what to do and one woman fights the system and rejects her arraigned marriage to do what she wants. Dystopian futures are so hot right now!

**Neil Burger will direct Shailene Woodley in Divergent, based on the Young Adult novel by Veronica Roth. Shailene Woodley is Beatrice Prior, and Evan Daugherty wrote the screenplay. It’s one of those books where in a dystopian future everyone is divided into a few factions who follow strict rules and one woman fights the system and rejects the rules to do what she wants. Dystopian futures are so hot right now!

**Marie Lu’s YA novel Legend is also headed to the big screen, with Andrew Barrer and Gabe Ferrari writing the script and Jonathan Levine directing. It’s one of those books where in a dystopian future a teenage boy Robin Hood causes trouble and a teenage girl cop hunts him down and fights the system by falling in love with him. Dystopian futures are so hot right now!

**Veronica Rossi’s YA novel Under the Never Sky has….guess what….been optioned for the big screen! It’s one of those books where in a dystopian future a teenage girl is kicked out of her domed city for fighting the syste— setting fires??!!? and has to team up with a teenage savage to avoid cannibals. Dystopian futures are so hot right now!

**Source Code and Moon director Duncan Jones will now direct the Warcraft movie, which means the Warcraft movie will now be awesome.

**

Trailer for Men in Suits, a documentary about performers in rubber monster suits. Lots more info here.

**

“NOON” Short Film from Kasra Farahani on Vimeo.

Kasra Farahani’s scifi short Noon joins the ever-increasing list of shorts that have been optioned for movies. There have been enough of these that it’s a trend. So get off your lazy butt and make a scifi short!!!

**We already got dueling Die Hard in the White House flicks this year, but next year we’ll have dueling Hercules movies! Aside from the Dwayne Johnson/Brett Ratner flick, Renny Harlin is making his own, which will be more Gladiator than super hero. Hercules 3D will presumably be in 3D.

**
Tyrannoneustes lythrodectikos
Tyrannoneustes lythrodectikos is the awesome ancestor to crocodiles that needs its own SyFy flick, stat! I can just see her now, fighting the system to eat the man she loves. Metriorhynchid super-predators are so hot right now! Via

Until next time, remember there are more Baby Geniuses films coming! A lot more!

InDinosaurs and other extinct, Movie News

This Petition Can Kiss My Jurassic!

January 11, 2013By

Dino Storm

Jurassic Park 4 is nothing more than a date on a Facebook page, but that hasn’t stopped the dumbest petition in Jurassic Park history from showing up on the White House site:

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
Require Jurassic Park 4 to film with practical effects and animatronic dinosaurs
America was built on determination and imagination and dreams. We innovate, we create opportunity, we inspire. But our country has fallin into a pit of darkness. Depression and acceptance, day after day after day. We have learned the truth about despair. Hope. But we cannot climb to the light on our own. Like shipwrecked men turning to seawater from uncontrollable thirst, many have died trying.

In 2014 we will be given Jurassic Park 4, and unless strict action is taken, we will see more of the same, cgi dinosaurs. We cannot let this pass, not again. We need a reminder of what genuine hard work can accomplish. We need to give our children the same gift we were given twenty years ago – what it means to be an American. We mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger darling

Yeesh! I don’t know what’s worse, the ignorance that there was CGI in the original Jurassic Park, the dumb “official” language the paragraphs use to sound important, or the insinuation that CGI artists are lazy. Bleh.

But then again, maybe we can get a cool response like this one!!!:

OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE RESPONSE TO
Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016.
This Isn’t the Petition Response You’re Looking For
By Paul Shawcross

The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn’t on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:
* The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We’re working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
* The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
* Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?
However, look carefully (here’s how) and you’ll notice something already floating in the sky — that’s no Moon, it’s a Space Station! Yes, we already have a giant, football field-sized International Space Station in orbit around the Earth that’s helping us learn how humans can live and thrive in space for long durations. The Space Station has six astronauts — American, Russian, and Canadian — living in it right now, conducting research, learning how to live and work in space over long periods of time, routinely welcoming visiting spacecraft and repairing onboard garbage mashers, etc. We’ve also got two robot science labs — one wielding a laser — roving around Mars, looking at whether life ever existed on the Red Planet.

I do demand a Jurassic Park 4 that is the Weaponized Dinosaurs. Make it happen, Hollywood.

image via Dino Storm, an actual game you can play.

InBiology, Science

Sea Squirts in Long Island Sound

January 3, 2010By

Hello, puny masses! It is I, Dr. Mobusu, here to once again grace you with my magical, mythical presence and abnormally amazing intellect. Soon, Dr. Mobusu will be a household name, and all of you who laughed will spit feeble curses before you are crushed beneath the legs of the giant panda herds. But enough of future events, let’s take a look at current events. Hordes of Sea Squirts are causing trouble in Long Island Sound. I know for a fact this is the work of a colleague of mine, Dr. Tobias Hunter. His passion is introducing species to new locations and delighting in the ecological damage. Dr. Hunter invented Killer Bees, released avian malaria upon Hawaiian birds, and even sails around the pacific throwing rats and goats onto islands. We are mad scientists, and we are legion. MuHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

In search of suffocating sea squirt
By MARIAN GAIL BROWN

Armed with sonar maps, cameras and a remote-controlled vehicle that looked ready for lunar exploration, University of Connecticut scientists plumbed the bottom of Long Island Sound on Tuesday for a slimy quarry.

The sea squirt, a blob-shaped animal with exponential reproductive powers, threatens to snuff out young lobsters and other shellfish.

Like the zebra mussel, which bonds to boats and can clog pipes at sewage-treatment plants, the sea squirt is an invasive species that UConn researchers believe hitched a ride on an ocean-faring vessel from Asia and dropped into the Sound. There are about 3,000 known species of sea squirts. The one drawing attention here is known as didemnum.

It looks like a mass of rubbery goo and can attach to anything from marina pilings to ship hulls to the grainy, sandy bottom of the Sound.

“This thing has the potential for causing significant economic impact when it attaches to the floor of the Sound, where it blankets and suffocates shellfish and lobsters,” said Ivar Babb, director of UConn’s Undersea Research Center at Avery Point in Groton. “They have no known predators. Their surfaces have a pH level of 2, which makes them quite acidic. Nothing grows on it.”

Sea squirts, depending on the species, range in color from a creamy translucent pearl to olive or tan. In Japan, there are some red species.

They reproduce quickly and form large mats covering an ocean floor. And breaking them apart seems to do no good, Babb said, because, like sea stars that become damaged, they can grow replacement parts. In other words, splitting one sea squirt in half doesn’t kill it — it only creates two of the plankton-eating creatures.

“It looks like a blob. It doesn’t have that graceful look that a jellyfish has floating carefree on the surface of the water,” Babb said. “This thing is ugly. It has no socially redeeming virtues.”

What concerns UConn and the aquaculture industry is the sea squirt’s incredible ability to reproduce and form large ocean-floor mats that suffocate other sea life. The UConn researchers want to document how much of the Sound’s floor the sea squirt blankets.

….

“We are seeing come large colonies of these sea squirts,” said Robert Whitlach, a professor of marine sciences at UConn at Avery Point, on board the boat Tuesday afternoon. “Sometimes they are a few inches in diameter; other times they are a mat 4 to 5 square feet. What’s surprising is that we didn’t find them in the area that we originally expected to. We’re finding them where we are now, 1 miles south of Stonington, near the Rhode Island/Connecticut border.” If the scientists don’t find bigger quantities of the blob-like creature, they may use chlorine or vinegar to kill it. But first they’ll study what effect those substances might have on other marine life native to the Sound.

Sea squirt sightings are becoming more common in the United States, showing up in places as far flung as Puget Sound in Washington state to San Francisco and off Massachusetts and Maine.

….

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