Savage Popcorn

My current issue of New Scientist hasn’t turned up yet but Slashdot has linked to an interesting article about the science behind the upcoming Iron Man film. They note that the technology in the film is a lot more firmly rooted in reality than you might realised – and much more realistic than the usual pretend science that infests so many of these types of film.

It’s worth reading and, I have to admit, makes the film seem a lot more appealing than it has done up to now.

Armando Iannucci, one of Britain’s foremost satirists is finally going to make a film. According to the BBC Press release (via) In the Loop will be directed by Iannucci, co-writing with Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche and Ian Martin – the writing team behind the BAFTA award-winning BBC hit, The Thick Of It.

The US President and UK Prime Minister suddenly fancy a war. But it’ll be quick this time. Promise!

The US General Miller (James Gandolfini) doesn’t think so and the British Secretary of State for International Development, Simon Foster (Tom Hollander), agrees with him.

But, after Simon accidentally backs military action on prime-time TV, he suddenly has a lot of friends in Washington, DC.

If Simon can get in with the right DC people, if his entourage of one (Chris Addison) can sleep with the right intern (Anna Chlumsky), and if they can both stop the PM’s chief strategist Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) rigging the vote at the UN, they can halt the war.

If they don’t… well, they can always sack their advisor Judy (Gina McKee), who they never liked anyway and who’s back home dealing with voters with blocked drains and a man who’s angry about a collapsing wall (Steve Coogan).

The film is due to be released in 2009, hopefully before the invasion of Iran goes ahead.

There have been rumours about this flying around the internet for a while but it has now been confirmed that Guillermo del Toro will direct the film version of The Hobbit as well as a sequel that will link this story to The Lord of The Rings.

Peter Jackson will produce.

As with Lord of the Rings, the films will be shot back to back in New Zealand and are planned for release in 2010 and 2011.

Let me say this again: The man who made The Lord of The Rings trilogy is to produce an adaptation of The Hobbit which will be directed by the man who gave us Pan?s Labyrinth. This has Most Anticipated Film for two years running stamped all over it.

So not only do the makers of Expelled not understand evolution, the scientific method or how to make an honest documentary, they don’t understand the fair use doctrine either. Consequently, Yoko Ono is suing them for using John Lennon’s song Imagine without permission.

Premise Media, the people behind the film - which lists Imagine in the credits in order to dishonestly suggest that Ono sanctioned the song’s use - claim that their activities fall under fair use. They’re wrong, of course.

Fair Use is an American legal doctrine that allows the use of copyrighted material (the UK’s Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 covers similar territory in its Fair Dealing clauses) on order to comment on it. So playing Imagine in order to deconstruct the lyrics or make some observation about the melody is fair use, but helping yourself to the song just because it has a nice tune is copyright theft.

It has been known for filmmakers to use copyrighted music in pre-release versions of their films. When (or if) a commercial distribution is acquired for a film such as this, it falls to either the producer or the distributor to obtain the appropriate permissions - or find an alternative piece of music that can be used. To fail to do this with a song as instantly recognisable as Imagine really does demonstrate incompetence on a grand scale.

The people behind Expelled really do come across as being as inept as they are dishonest.

I haven’t said much about Expelled, Ben Stein’s disingenuous film about Intelligent Design, primarily because I still find it difficult to believe that anyone can take this kind of rubbish seriously. In all likelihood, the film’s release will be attended by the sort of delusional nuts that already buy into this sort conspiracy worldview and then be quickly and quietly forgotten.

But just in case the film does make it across the Atlantic or, worse, actually gets taken seriously be someone, here’s a couple of links.

Arthur Caplan demolishes every claim in the film and Richard Dawkins writes an open letter to someone who was taken in by it.

(via Pharyngula)

There are films out there being made for very little money. These films don’t have any stars attached to them to pull in the audiences and the sets and special effects can often be pretty basic.

Of course, the size of the budget is never a limitation for either a good script or well developed characters and, sometimes, independent films can do a great job of dealing with themes or ideas – or pushing an envelope – that mainstream filmmakers simply aren’t able to touch.

When all else fails, a great title goes a long way. I know absolutely nothing about Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust, but I want to see it.

You heard it on David Thompson’s Blog first.

Back in May of last year, Robert Rodriguez became the latest director to be attached to the much discussed remake of Barbarella. In August news emerged that he had shot some test footage with Rose McGowan and much discussion ensued across the interrumournet about how well McGowan would fill the fur bikini.

Two months later it was all off. Rodriguez, it appeared, wanted to make a Rose McGowan blockbuster and Universal refused.

Now, apparently, not only is the film back on, but it was never off in the first place. Rose McGowan has told MTV (via) that the rumours of the death of the film were greatly exaggerated and she has the contracts to prove it. Not just the contracts, though, but sets and costumes, and a whole “lot of pre-production work,” as well.

There’s no word from Universal as yet and nothing in McGowan’s comments to suggest that the film is anywhere near going into production, so I remain a tad sceptical as to whether this film actually will go into production.

“The original doesn’t have a lot to go on plot-wise. It’s one thing to do a remake of something that could have been much better storywise even if it was fantastic visually. It’s another thing to remake something flawless,” McGowan said. “That way if yours isn’t that good at least yours is better than that one.”

In fact, I would be far from unhappy if this version of the film doesn’t go into production.

This could be the new Battlefield Earth!

- Devin Faraci on the possibility that the insane idea of filming Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged might actually go ahead.