Savage Popcorn

There are more slaves today than ever before in human history. In 2007, Slave Traders made more money than Google, Nike and Starbucks combined.

Call + Response is a campaigning documentary that goes deep undercover to the places where slavery is thriving - from the child brothels of Cambodia to the slave brick kilns of rural India – to expose the world’s 27 million dirtiest secrets.

The filmmakers are also creating interactive field projects for each aspect of human slavery: sex slavery, labor slavery, child soldiers and child slavery. All profits from the use of the film, DVD, soundtrack, iTunes downloads will be directed, by the viewers, to these projects with clear start and finish points (such as a landrover for a child soldier rehab camp, or sewing machines for a after-care training facility). Their goal is to fund and celebrate completed projects together in community and to close the loop by allowing viewers to become participants in the solution.

The film is the call, and they are asking for a response. Watch the trailer, post it and join their Facebook and MySpace groups. Do More.

… On Rotten Tomatoes (via Twitch)

Click here for some context.

Why won’t the backers behind Ken Russell’s masterpiece The Devils let us see the film in its complete form?

Remember V, the 1980s miniseries? Granted the Nazi allegory was about as subtle as a sledgehammer but the series did work and – having watched it again a few years ago – it stands up surprisingly well.

So I’m relatively optimistic about the news that there is a film on the way but it gets better. El Mayimbe at Latino Review has managed to lay his hands not only on the script for the film but also its intended sequel, V: The 2nd Generation and it’s all sounding remarkably positive.

Loved it then, and love it still.  The script’s biggest success is modernizing the premise into a well-paced story that draws parallels to the modern war in Iraq.  As a script, V: THE MOVIE tells an epic story solidly. The plot follows many key and important characters but focuses mainly on news cameraman Mike as he fights his way to expose the true nature of the hostile alien threat, while joining a small but growing number of human resisters against the alien occupation.  

The story worked 25 years ago and still works today. The lead characters, the central conflict and the overall plot are extremely similar to INDEPENDENCE DAY and V FOR VENDETTA and in fact V: THE MOVIE could be pitched as those two mentioned rolled into one. Drawing upon the major Orwellian themes found in the aforementioned films, while coupling it with a blood thirsty hostile alien race looking to steal earth’s resources and enslaving mankind, the script is no doubt HUGELY commercial!

There is a more spoileriffic summary of the film over here.

From Twitch comes some good news for fans of Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia. He has signed on to direct and co-write a live action adaptation of Edgar P. Jacobs’ The Yellow “M”.

Things are even better for Spanish speakers (and those of us who remain optimistic about subtitled DVD sets) as he is also co-writing, co-producing and directing a 26 episode Spanish SF sitcom called Pluton Verbenero which is slated for a September première.

In 1984, soviet studio Uzbekfilm produced a short animated adaptation of the Ray Brabury short story There Will Come Soft Rains. As is increasingly inevitable these days, the film has turned up on the internet.

Enjoy.

It’s bad enough that Quentin Tarantino is talking about remaking Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! but the Daily Telegraph (via) is claiming that Britney Spears has accepted the role of Varla.

If this is true, then the apocalypse is not just nigh, it’s already happened. And before you ask, yes we are all going to hell in a handcart.

Eight years in the making, spanning 150 chapters, involving 100 actors, and about 40 musical groups from almost as many countries, Hasso Wuerslin’s SF-Horror series, The DeadBooks is being transformed into something rather different on the Net.

It’s not really a novel anymore, but nor is it a movie, nor an old-time radio show, though it contains attributes of all those story-telling techniques. It’s called a Hyper-Serialization and the first 10 hour season is set to launch on August 18th.

Take a look.

Warner Bros. have released the Terminator Salvation Comic-Con Poster. And yes, I am already far too optimistic about this film.

Click here to see the poster in its full-size glory.