With Teeth

Nine Inch Nails dropped out of the MTV Movie Awards after clashing with the network over an image of President Bush the band planned as a performance backdrop. The Bush image was to accompany the song "The Hand That Feeds," which obliquely criticizes the Iraq war. It includes the lyrics: "What if this whole crusade's a charade / And behind it all there's a price to be paid / For the blood on which we dine / Justified in the name of the holy and the divine." MTV said in a statement to its news division that the network was disappointed the industrial rock band would not perform but had been "uncomfortable with their performance being built around a partisan political statement." The Foo Fighters will perform in place of the Trent Reznor-led band at the awards being taped June 4 in Los Angeles. Reznor said in a statement posted on the band's Web site Thursday that the image of the president would have been unaltered and "straightforward." "Apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me," he said. Nine Inch Nails' fourth studio album and first in six years, "With Teeth," debuted this month at No. 1 in sales.

Best British Songs Of All Time?...$(*&%@

Britpop group Oasis' 1995 hit "Wonderwall" topped a radio station's poll of the best British songs of all time on Monday. Listeners to Britain's Virgin Radio voted the anthem by brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher's band their all time favorite British hit. Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" came in second place and Led Zepplin's "Stairway to Heaven" placed third. Queen and the Beatles had the most entries of eight each in the poll of the best 100 songs, as voted by 8,300 listeners to the radio station. Best British Songs, as voted by Virgin Radio listeners: 1. Oasis - Wonderwall 2. Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody 3. Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven 4. The Beatles - Let It Be 5. John Lennon - Imagine 6. The Police - Every Breath You Take 7. The Jam - Going Underground 8. Verve - Bittersweet Symphony 9. Robbie Williams - Angels 10. The Stranglers - Golden Brown What transpire here? "Wonderwall" is the best British song ever? What has this Virgin radio's 8,300 listeners been smoking at?

What's Your Superpower?

What's your superpower? My superpower? Stickiness. That stinks. Stinky movie-promo websites...

The Game

It's here... Basic Specs for Sony PlayStation 3 Controller: Bluetooth Wireless Processor: Cell processor Graphics Processor: RSX "Reality Synthesizer" System Memory: 256MB XDR Resolution: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p Integrated Communications: 802.11 B/G Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 Built-in Features: Backward Compatible with PlayStation 2, Stands Vertically or Horizontally

Time Compiles List of 100 Greatest Films

An interesting list of films to look at, though not necessarily top 100 stuffs. The movie critics for Time magazine, Richard Schickel and Richard Corliss, have compiled an unranked list of the 100 greatest films. It was posted Sunday on www.Time.com. The most popular director turned out to be Martin Scorsese, who has three films on the list. Scorsese's frequent actor of choice, Robert De Niro, leads actors with five. Since Schickel and Corliss also have divergent tastes, much of the finalized list is one of compromise. "Most 100 lists are the product of a single sensibility and this is a compromised list because his sensibility and mine, I think, agreed between 40 percent and 50 percent of the time ... and then it gets to a wrangle." In Monday's issue of the magazine, the two critics also name the best film from each decade since Time began: "Metropolis" (1927), "Dodsworth" (1936), "Citizen Kane" (1941), "Ikiru" (1952), "Persona" (1966), "Chinatown" (1974), "Decalogue" (1988), "Pulp Fiction" (1994) and "Talk to Her" (2002). But Schickel still says to reserve any great reverence for the result of their toil. "In a way this is supposed to be fun. ... The notion that any kind of movie reviewing or movie commentary is an opinion handed down from on high by somebody in judicial robes is nonsensical. They're all kind of first opinions and depends on, I don't know, what you ate for breakfast that morning." A - C Aguirre: the Wrath of God (1972) The Apu Trilogy (1955, 1956, 1959) The Awful Truth (1937) Baby Face (1933) Bande à part (1964) Barry Lyndon (1975) Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) Blade Runner (1982) Bonnie and Clyde (1967) Brazil (1985) Bride of Frankenstein (1935) Camille (1936) Casablanca (1942) Charade (1963) Children of Paradise (1945) Chinatown (1974) Chungking Express (1994) Citizen Kane (1941) City Lights (1931) City of God (2002) Closely Watched Trains (1966) The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936) The Crowd (1928) D - F Day for Night (1973) The Decalogue (1989) Detour (1945) The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) Dodsworth (1936) Double Indemnity (1944) Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) Drunken Master II (1994) E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) 8 1/2 (1963) The 400 Blows (1959) Farewell My Concubine (1993) Finding Nemo (2003) The Fly (1986) G - J The Godfather, Parts I and II (1972, 1974) The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966) Goodfellas (1990) A Hard Day's Night (1964) His Girl Friday (1940) Ikiru (1952) In A Lonely Place (1950) Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) It's A Gift (1934) It's A Wonderful Life (1946) K - M Kandahar (2001) Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) King Kong (1933) The Lady Eve (1941) The Last Command (1928) Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Léolo (1992) The Lord of the Rings (2001-03) The Man With a Camera (1929) The Manchurian Candidate (1962) Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) Metropolis (1927) Miller's Crossing (1990) Mon oncle d'Amérique (1980) Mouchette (1967) N - P Nayakan (1987) Ninotchka (1939) Notorious (1946) Olympia, Parts 1 and 2 (1938) On the Waterfront (1954) Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) Out of the Past (1947) Persona (1966) Pinocchio (1940) Psycho (1960) Pulp Fiction (1994) The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) Pyaasa (1957) Q - S Raging Bull (1980) Schindler's List (1993) The Searchers (1956) Sherlock, Jr. (1924) The Shop Around the Corner (1940) Singin' in the Rain (1952) The Singing Detective (1986) Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) Some Like It Hot (1959) Star Wars (1977) A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) Sunrise (1927) Sweet Smell of Success (1957) Swing Time (1936) T - Z Talk to Her (2002) Taxi Driver (1976) Tokyo Story (1953) A Touch of Zen (1971) Ugetsu (1953) Ulysses' Gaze (1995) Umberto D (1952) Unforgiven (1992) White Heat (1949) Wings of Desire (1987) Yojimbo (1961)

Who Watches The Watchmen

Widely acknowledged as the "Citizen Kane" of comicdom, and quite possibly the best-written comic story ever, the history of all superhero stories are divided into pre- and post- 'Watchmen' eras after its release. First published (in comic form) in 1986-1987, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' "Watchmen" redefine the industry and together with Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns", made 1987 "the best year in comic's history". Naturally, the monster that we come to called, "Hollywood", would waste no time in cashing in such material in a time like now when comic-to-screen adaptions are reigning high at the box-office (especially with the considerably box-office success of "From Hell" and "League of Extraodinary Gentlemen", both written by the inimitable Alan Moore, despite the fact that both pales terribly in comparisons to the original). Also, it is publicly known (unfortunately due to Queen Amidala's new hairdo) that another of Alan Moore's masterworks, "V For Vendetta", with the Wachowski Brothers helming the scripts,is scheduled for release on the 5th of November 2005. Before you scream for mercy, rejoice yet, as we seem to have a appropriately capable director at hand. Director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, Bloody Sunday), who recently spoke at length about how he'll be handling this movie over at CHUD(and here's part one, part two, and finally, part three), does look like the more suitable one, upon reading on his past experiences in works regarding the same paranoia theme that embodies Watchmen. Here are some of the excerpt from the interview. Q: What are you working on at the moment? Costumes and sets? Greengrass: It’s a bit like how do you fit fifteen people through a small door simultaneously. That’s what pre-production is like in the early stages. How do you fit an American football team through a door that’s about two feet wide and three foot tall. You have to crew up first of all – not first of all, these are in no order of priorities, these are just the things you have to do. You have to start designing sets and wardrobe. You have to start really analyzing how you’re going to make the film. You have to start working on the screenplay. You have to start thinking about casting. You have to start thinking about budgets. We’ve made a good start. It’s interesting the kind of issues that first raise their head, really. How do you deliver the Citizen Kane of comic books to screen? That is basically the problem. It’s a bit intimidating to be honest. I believe two things, really: I do believe, obviously because I am here, that you can make a film based on Watchmen the novel that is both truthful to the novel and also works in two hours. I really do believe that, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. The second point is that I believe in an odd kind of way that it’s twenty years since Watchmen, give or take a year or two – certainly twenty years since it was set – and I think in many ways a lot of what Watchmen was about is very, very relevant to today. I think that those are the two things that beat most passionately inside me. Q: How did you first become aware of the novel, and how did you become involved with this project? Greengrass: I was going to say that the interesting thing from my point of view – I got a call in November or December, not that long ago, saying had I heard of Watchmen and was I interested in doing a film. I said are you kidding, of course I had heard of Watchmen. But the interesting thing from my point of view is that I’m not a person steeped in comic book lore. That’s not where I come from. It wasn’t something that – I didn’t sit as a child and read millions and millions of comics. I’m a Brit, as Alan Moore is, and Watchmen I read at the time that it came out. The reason I read it is because at the time there was a lot of pieces of work done in this period of the mid to late 80s that were, due to the state power, sort of dark and conspiratorial and reflecting the acute paranoia of the late Cold War. I was very involved in doing different sorts of work then, but one of the things I did at the time was a book called Spycatcher, which at that time caused a lot of stir because it got banned by the British government. It was a kind of book about spies and I actually wrote it with a guy who was inside our MI-5, which is like our version of the FBI sort of CIA type of thing. It was really an expose of what was going on. At the time that that came out, there was a kind of fantastic prolonged twelve month period where it was a court case and it became a great set piece encounter – conflict, really – trying to define where the boundaries lay between the government’s desire to protect national security and our right as citizens to know what is done in our name. The whole Spycatcher affair became a great controversy over here. At the time there was a lot of work done that reflected that kind of paranoia. There was a lot of drama done, there were films done, Spycatcher – and Watchmen. They were often linked together in the press, the zeitgeist was paranoia. That’s really where I come to Watchmen. That is why I am convinced I can make the film, because I understood from personal experience the milieu that gave rise to Watchmen. I understood a lot of the references that Alan Moore used. He just happened to be expressing that paranoia in the medium of the graphic novel, the comic book, where I and others were working in different mediums. But we were all part of reflecting the same mood. Q: So that means you’re not going to be shying away from the political edge. Greengrass: No, not at all. I think it’s very, very important. One of the things that distinguishes Watchmen is that it’s about the way we live today. At that time it was about the way that we lived then. I think that we need to make a film of Watchmen that reflects the times we live in. What’s interesting to me is that Watchmen, when it came out, reflected late Cold War paranoia, and what was really interesting about it is that it was an incredibly bold kind of allusive, allegorical, dense, rich story that involved the collision of two elements: a real world running towards Armageddon – which is something at that time we thought was liable to happen, with the great arms race of the 1980s – so you have at the back of Watchmen this ticking clock, which is these footsteps to Armageddon, which is really a Cold War formulation. The Soviet Union invades Aghanistan – Q: And they move the clock ahead one minute. The nuclear clock. Greengrass: Exactly. And yoked together with that was this murder mystery involving generations of caped crusaders. It was the collision of those two elements that created the really great originality of Watchmen. What’s interesting today is that we live with new paranoias, but they are paranoias. We are once again in very paranoid times, in a way that we haven’t been I think – I’m talking about the post-9/11 world – we have been in levels of paranoia that we last experienced at the time of Watchmen. Q: That’s interesting because at the end of the 90s Watchmen seemed like it might be a relic from another time. But like you said, 9/11 made it relevant again. But on the other hand many people have said that they think 9/11 makes the movie impossible to make because of the way the novel ends. Greengrass: I don’t agree. I think it’s completely possible, and here’s the reason why: I think paranoia is driven by the circumstances of the world. In the mid to late 80s, particularly young people at that time, of which I was one, felt that the world was spiraling out of control. That there was going to be a sequence, a dance, a series of footsteps that were going to walk off over the edge into some cataclysmic event. The structures of the world were designed – were so intractable, were so locked in a sequence – that we couldn’t escape that. I think that today a lot of people feel the same thing. Now it’s not going to be the Cold War prism. The world is no longer a bi-polar world divided between the USA and the USSR. We live in a unipolar world. But the dangers, the nuclear dangers today, are profound and very real. They’re to do with nuclear proliferation, the spread of these weapons. How do we deal with a world where these technologies spread? How do we keep the peace? That’s what drives us. We fear Al Qaeda, we fear terrorists, but I think underneath that is a much deeper fear. It’s a fear that, in a way, the bi-polar world offered us curiously some security, where now we feel that these weapons are spread, that creates challenges. How do we keep peace in a world where these technologies are spreading? That’s what I think we have to use Watchmen to address. I think it’s really important. And I think that what it means is – and we’re engaged in a debate at the moment in this production on how to do it – you have to take the chronology of Watchmen, and by chronology I mean what I call the “footsteps to Armageddon” part of the machinery of Watchmen. You’ve got these two pieces of machinery, the first of which is the murder mystery with the caped crusaders and the various generations thereof, and the other is the footsteps of Armageddon. What you have to do is take that chronology as it’s given to us in Watchmen and try to update it. You don’t replace it, you just say “What would have happened if that chronology continued?” One of the most exciting things that I remember distinctly when I read Watchmen when it came out was this idea of a world that was our world but that had taken a slightly different course. Nixon had served three or four terms. Woodward and Bernstein had been assassinated. G Gordon Liddy had become the trusted advisor to the president. It was a kind of world turned on its head. What we have to do is imagine what would have happened to that Watchmen world if it had continued, rather than say let’s start with a new paradigm. It’s about building on what’s there in the spirit of the novel. That’s what we’re going to try to achieve. So you feel that it’s addressing our world, but you’re not losing the world Watchmen gave us. Which is the Nixon four terms world. Q: Alan Moore has been very vocal about not being happy with the movie adaptations of his work. Have you spoken to him about this, or tried to speak to him, or even just hope to speak to him? Greengrass: I hope to, I would love to. I intend to try. In many ways he’s made his position plain about the films. They’re not my films. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t at the scene of those accidents. All I can speak to is where I come from, where I come to Watchmen from and what I would like to do. I couldn’t presume to tell Alan Moore it’s going to be great. It’s exactly the same thing as when I sat down with families who lost loved ones in the bombing at Omagh or who lost loved ones in Bloody Sunday. In the end you can’t say to people like that, “Listen, I’m going to make this film and it’s going to be great!” You can’t say that. All you can say is, “I would like you to give me the chance to show you what I have done and you judge me on that.” That’s all you can ask. You can ask to be judged on what you tried to do. You can’t ask for endorsement in advance, it seems to me. You have to earn respect with what you do. That is the same with the Watchmen community. A lot of people out there will be skeptical about us, will doubt that it can be done, will worry about how we will do it. All I can say in all honesty and humility is, I understand that. I believe with a passion that we can do it, I believe with a passion that I was making a contribution in my country as Alan Moore was in his way at that time, but I was dealing with a lot of the same material and ideas at that time. I beg only that you judge me when I’m done, as I’m sure I will be. A review from CHUD on the scripts by David Hayter are right here, and there's also another review from the ever-reliable AICN, right here. Anyway, Moriaty, from AICN, has recently raised his concerns over if the changes in Paramount's executive offices may signal bad news for how this movie will be adapted. Like he said, let's keep our fingers crossed for this one. In my opinion, the single most anticipated movie. So much so that despite my cynical self, I'm not going to say "Let'see how they screw this one up".

It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's...

Superman Not impressed at all, I might add. But I guess everybody was feeling sceptical back when the first peek at X-Men was out. So, we can still hope and pray for mercy.

616: Number Of The Beast

A newly discovered fragment of the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament indicates that, as far as the Antichrist goes, theologians, scholars, heavy metal groups, and television evangelists have got the wrong number. Instead of 666, it’s actually the far less ominous 616. The new fragment from the Book of Revelation, written in ancient Greek and dating from the late third century, is part of a hoard of previously unintelligible manuscripts discovered in historic dumps outside Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. Now a team of expert classicists, using new photographic techniques, are finally deciphering the original writing. Professor David Parker, Professor of New Testament Textual Criticism and Paleography at the University of Birmingham, thinks that 616, although less memorable than 666, is the original. He said: “This is an example of gematria, where numbers are based on the numerical values of letters in people’s names. Early Christians would use numbers to hide the identity of people who they were attacking: 616 refers to the Emperor Caligula.” …satanists responded coolly to the new “Revelation". Peter Gilmore, High Priest of the Church of Satan, based in New York, said: “By using 666 we’re using something that the Christians fear. Mind you, if they do switch to 616 being the number of the beast then we’ll start using that.” Intriguing. Does anyone recall that in Alan Moore's CAPTAIN BRITAIN, 616 was the number assigned to "our" universe by a multiversal authority. There are zillions of parallel universes and they all have a number designation. "Our" universe, meaning the good ol'Marvel universe that we grown up with(though not necessarily love, based on the great sales we see with the Ultimate line), the single one universe most continuity freaks hold true to. Hmmm...Highly disturbing fact, considering Alsn Moore's infamous reputation being well,..."Alan Moore and his chaos magick and his snake-worshipping.", as quoted from comicsshouldbegood.

Neil Gaiman Coming To Singapore

Some excerpt from Neil Gaiman's official site I don't have exact information yet about where every signing will be, but I do now have some general dates, and will post these on condition that I'm not then deluged with requests for which bookshop I'll be in in each city. As soon soon as I know all of them, I'll post the whole thing, here and at Where's Neil. Arrive Singapore July 3. Events July 4-6. Fly to Manila on July 8--arrive probably late afternoon, according to the schedule on Philippine air. Events July 9 to 11. Fly out July 13th, arrive late that day or early 14th in Melbourne, via Sydney. 7/15 to 7/17: Continuum 3 7/18: Events in Melbourne 7/19: events in Canberra 7/20: events in Sydney 7/21: events in Brisbane 7/22: DAY OFF with Eddie Campbell and family 7/23: Fly to Sydney to fly to Hawaii

Superhero Strikes Again

Remember him?... Batman... Or them?... Superman, Spider-man & Batman... Well, the Man Of Steel himself, Superman now flies alone... Superman!

Talk Cock

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinese men have no reason to feel inferior about the size of their penises, according to a Hong Kong study which showed local men measured up to others elsewhere in the world below the belt. "Our conclusion is that Hong Kong people are no smaller than Western men, where their penises are concerned," said Chan Lung-wai, director of the Urology Center at the Union Hospital, who headed the study. "There has always been the myth that westerners have bigger penises and their (sexual) ability is better." Well, what can I say. "The truth? You can't handle the truth!"

God is dead. Meet the kids.

Anansi Boys When Fat Charlie's dad named something, it stuck. Like calling Fat Charlie "Fat Charlie." Even now, twenty years later, Charlie Nancy can't shake that name, one of the many embarrassing "gifts his father bestowed - before he dropped dead on a karaoke stage and ruined Fat Charlie's life. Mr. Nancy left Fat Charlie things. Things like the tall good-looking stranger who appears on Charlie's doorstep, who appears to be the brother he never knew. A brother as different from Charlie as night is to day, a brother who's going to show Charlie how to lighten up and have a little fun…just like Dear Old Dad. And all of a sudden, life starts getting very interesting for Fat Charlie. Because, you see, Charlie's dad wasn't just any dad. He was Anansi, a trickster god, the spider-god. Anansi is the spirit of rebellion -- he is able to overturn the social order, create wealth out of thin air, and baffle the devil. Exciting, scary, and deeply funny, Anansi Boys is a kaleidoscope journey deep into myth, a wild adventure, and a fierce and unstoppable farce, as Neil Gaiman shows us where gods come from, and how to survive your family. Some excerpt from the much anticipated sequel to the epic novel, "American Gods". Sorta sequel since it featured characters from "American Gods", like the title character, Nancy AKA Anansi, the trickster god. That is, if you still haven't read "The Monarch of the Glen", a short story about Shadow in Scotland (and somehow rather blatantly implying the possibility of a Shadow in London story in the future). Anyway, just go to the link for more "sneak peek excerpt" from the novel.