David Letterman gave his final Top 10 List Wednesday night and Alec Baldwin, Barbara Walters, Steve Martin, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jim Carrey, Tina Fey, Peyton Manning and Bill Murray all appeared on stage to help Dave out.
The final Late Show with David Letterman was Wednesday night and the Foo Fighters played the final song. The band performed “Everlong” accompanied by highlights spanning 33 years of Letterman’s late-night career.
The Hashtag Show, is reporting that Marvel Studios is looking at Matthew McConaughey to play Norman Osborn in the new Spider-Man reboot (Spider-Man: New Avenger).
The site says that this news is unconfirmed at the moment and still a rumor for now.
The Spider-Man: New Avenger is scheduled for release on July 28th, 2017.
The concept of the corporation trying to take a hard-working man’s property has been used for centuries but Ken Pisani’s Colonus takes that concept and hits it on the head with a shovel!
The plot that Pisani has constructed is Total Recall on steroids. The Earth is gone. The colony on Mars had to pollute the planet to raise the temperature and the colony on Venus figured out that they could survive in cloud cities 50 kilometers above the surface. Now the colony on Mars wants what the colony on Venus has. Man versus man at its finest.
As an introduction to the series the reader is hooked by fourth page in. The main character Braxton is tough as nails and is more than pumped to defend his planet, and guess what, the corporation is ready to devour another world and doesn’t care who’s in the way. The premise works so well that I’m drooling for the next chapter.
If Frank Miller and Mike Mignola had a love child his name would be Arturo Lauria. His work very solid in the first chapter and his color palette choices are brilliant. Lauria’s action sequences are very smooth and deliberate. What worked really well was the advanced perspective, this lead to a very tense feeling while reading the book.
If you’re a fan of science fiction or Clint Eastwood, this is a must read.
Colonus
by Ken Pisani and Arturo Lauria
Debuting in Dark Horse Presents #10, May 2015
The future. Earth is a dead planet.
Its survivors have colonized Mars, while Earth’s outcasts–the criminals, miscreants, fringe-dwellers, and sociopaths–fled inward, to Venus.
Three generations later, the Mars colony has replicated the worst of the world they left behind: avarice, gluttony, and a thirst for power… while the denizens of Venus, strengthened by hardship forged in brutality and hellish conditions, thrive.
And now, Mars turns its attention to lovely Venus.
Part one of the exclusive HBO miniseries SHOW ME A HERO debuts SUNDAY, AUG. 16 (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET/PT).
From creator David Simon (HBO’s “Treme” and “The Wire”) and director Paul Haggis (“Crash”), and based on the nonfiction book of the same name by Lisa Belkin, this six-part miniseries explores notions of home, race and community through the lives of elected officials, bureaucrats, activists and ordinary citizens in Yonkers, NY.
In an America generations removed from the greatest civil rights struggles of the 1960s, the young mayor (Oscar Isaac) of a mid-sized American city is faced with a federal court order that says he must build a small number of low-income housing units in the white neighborhoods of his town. His attempt to do so tears the entire city apart, paralyzes the municipal government and, ultimately, destroys the mayor and his political future.
In addition to Oscar Isaac, SHOW ME A HERO stars Catherine Keener, Alfred Molina, Winona Ryder, LaTanya Richardson-Jackson, Bob Balaban and Jim Belushi. Directed by Paul Haggis; written by David Simon and William F. Zorzi; executive produced by David Simon, Nina K. Noble, Paul Haggis, Gail Mutrux and William F. Zorzi.
Source: HBO Media
Greg Poehler talked with Matthew Sardo about his show Welcome to Sweden. Poehler who gave up his job in law; writes, produces, and stars in the show that airs in the states and over in Sweden.
Poehler also talked about how lonely it’s to watch the Super Bowl in Sweden, and how Aziz Ansari inspired him to try stand up comedy.
The first season of Welcome to Sweden is available now on DVD.
The Greg Poehler interview starts at the 5:35 mark of the podcast, just incase you want to skip my review of Tomorrowland.
May 19th is SO yesterday!
— Greg Poehler (@GregPoehler) May 20, 2015
The legendary Bob Dylan was on the second to last Late Night with David Letterman and he performed “The Night We Called It a Day” from his new album.
Lea DeLaria of Orange is the new Black talked with Matthew Sardo about the Netflix revolution, season three of OITNB, David Bowie + jazz, Lucille Ball, Grace Kelly, and career advice for waiters.
House of David – DeLaria + Bowie = Jazz
ABOUT LEA DELARIA
Lea DeLaria has distinguished herself in every form of entertainment that she touches – Jazz Musician, Broadway Diva, Actor, Writer and Stand-Up Comic – and it is plain to see why Ben Brantley of the New York Times describes Lea as “…every inch a star.”
“…a thorn in the side of those with both neo-con and right on orthodoxies.” –The Guardian (UK)
LEA DELARIA seems to have achieved overnight stardom with her stand-out role as Big Boo in the Netflix hit series Orange is the New Black. And while she went from being able to walk around a city with the occasional “hey it’s you” to not being able to walk into a Dollar Store in a suburb without getting asked for a picture, the fact is, Lea has been a professional lesbian for 30 years. Before that, she freelanced.
Lea was the first queer comic to perform on television in America which launched her into world recognition.
Prior to her success on Orange she was seen in countless TV series (Awkward, Californication, The Oblongs, One Live to Live, Law and Order SVU, Will and Grace, Friends to name a few), and movies (First Wives Club, Dear Dumb Diary, Edge of Seventeen), with appearances on and off Broadway that have and continue to garner her recognition and acclaim.
Her on and off Broadway credits are too numerous to mention, but stand outs include her appearance on Broadway in “On the Town,” which she won Obie and Theatre World awards, as well as a Drama Desk nomination; an Ovation nomination for her appearance in the “Boys from Syracuse;” and playing both Edie AND Doctor Scott in” The Rocky Horror Show.”
If that’s not enough, Lea has five, records out on the Warner Jazz and Classics label and her book “Lea’s Book of Rules for the World” is in its third printing at Bantam Doubleday and Dell.
Follow Lea on Twitter and Instagram @realleadelaria and FaceBook.
I LUV NYC! Just walked into Union Sq b and found kids public art anti bullying/racism/gangs/drugs.… https://t.co/7ynCNgKucP
— Lea DeLaria (@realleadelaria) May 19, 2015
The second trailer for the upcoming sci-fi/action/comedy mashup Pixels has been released, highlighting character backstories and showing off even more of the iconic video-game creations that have been sent to earth by aliens to destroy us.
The premise is interesting, and there are some genuine laughs in this new Pixels trailer, but the film could honestly go either way in term of quality, mostly because of the actors involved.
Here is the new Pixels trailer:
Adam Sandler, Kevin James, and Josh Gad don’t really have a good track record right now, at least in my book, for making comedies I care about (Peter Dinklage may save the whole thing). Hopefully that will change with Pixels, which does truly look like a fun time. The nostalgia of seeing these old video game creations larger than life might alienate younger audiences, however, so that is another risk with the success of the film.
Pixels is directed by Chris Columbus, and it hits theaters on July 24.
When I say “me” I’m mean iO9, because they did post their article nine hours before mine.
Earlier today I posted an article about Simon Pegg and how he turned his back on nerd society. I even found a picture of Pegg giving us the bird. Nothing angers a nerd mob like a turncoat!
Simon Pegg Just Grew Up And Turned His Back On Us
Pegg has since responded to the comments and the critics on his website with a post titled: Big Mouth Strikes Again
Don't Panic! Simon responds to @io9's understandable concerns at recent press comments regarding geekdom. http://t.co/LcqNPjntd9 (CF)
— Pegg News (@simonpegg) May 19, 2015
Simon Pegg:
It has come to my attention (thank you google), that the excellent website, Io9 picked up on some controversial comments I made to the Radio Times, which can be summed up in the above headline. Now, maybe I was being a little bit trollish, I can be a bit of a Contrary Mary in interviews sometimes. When you do lots of them, you get sick of your own opinions and start espousing other people’s. Having said that, the idea of our prolonged youth is something I’ve been interested in for a very long time. It’s essentially what Spaced was about, at least in part.
One of the things that inspired Jessica and myself, all those years ago, was the unprecedented extension our generation was granted to its youth, in contrast to the previous generation, who seemed to adopt a received notion of maturity at lot sooner. The children of the 70s and 80s were the first generation, for whom it wasn’t imperative to ‘grow up’ immediately after leaving school. Why this happened is a whole other sociological discussion: a rise in the student population, progress in gender equality, the absence of world war; all these things and more contributed to this social evolution. What fascinated Jess and I was the way we utilised this time. For Tim and Daisy, not having to grow up in the way their parents did, simply meant a continuation of their childhood. For Daisy, it was the pursuit of her girlhood dreams and fantasies. For Tim, he channeled his childhood passions into his adult life, cared about them as much, invested in them, the same level of time, importance and emotion. His hobbies and interests defined who he was, rather than his professional status.
In the 18 years since we wrote Spaced, this extended adolescence has been cannily co-opted by market forces, who have identified this relatively new demographic as an incredibly lucrative wellspring of consumerist potential. Suddenly, here was an entire generation crying out for an evolved version of the things they were consuming as children. This demographic is now well and truly serviced in all facets of entertainment and the first and second childhoods have merged into a mainstream phenomenon.
Before Star Wars, the big Hollywood studios were making art movies, with morally ambiguous characters, that were thematically troubling and often dark (Travis Bickle dark, as opposed to Bruce Wayne dark)*. This was probably due in large part to the Vietnam War and the fact that a large portion of America’s young men were being forced to grow up very quickly. Images beamed back home from the conflict, were troubling and a growing protest movement forced the nation to question the action abroad. Elsewhere, feminism was still dismissed as a lunatic fringe by the patriarchal old guard, as mainstream culture actively perpetuated traditional gender roles. Star Wars was very much an antidote to the moral confusion of the war, solving the conundrum of who was good and who was evil. At the heart of the story was an ass kicking princess who must surely have empowered an entire generation of girls. It was a balm for a nation in crisis in a number of ways and such was that nation’s influence, the film became a global phenomenon.
Recent developments in popular culture were arguably predicted by the French philosopher and cultural theorist, Jean Baudrillard in his book, ‘America’, in which he talks about the infantilzation of society. Put simply, this is the idea that as a society, we are kept in a state of arrested development by dominant forces in order to keep us more pliant. We are made passionate about the things that occupied us as children as a means of drawing our attentions away from the things we really should be invested in, inequality, corruption, economic injustice etc. It makes sense that when faced with the awfulness of the world, the harsh realities that surround us, our instinct is to seek comfort, and where else were the majority of us most comfortable than our youth? A time when we were shielded from painful truths by our recreational passions, the toys we played with, the games we played, the comics we read. There was probably more discussion on Twitter about the The Force Awakens and the Batman vs Superman trailers than there was about the Nepalese earthquake or the British general election.
The ‘dumbing down’ comment came off as a huge generalisation by an A-grade asshorn. I did not mean that science fiction or fantasy are dumb, far from it. How could I say that? In the words of Han Solo, “Hey, it’s me!” In the last two weeks, I have seen two brilliant exponents of the genre. Ex Machina and Mad Max: Fury Road, both of which had my head spinning in different and wonderful ways and are both very grown up films (although Max has a youthful exuberance which is nothing’s short of joyous, thanks George Miller, 70) I’ve yet to see Tomorrowland but with Brad Bird at the helm, it cannot be anything but a hugely entertaining think piece.
I guess what I meant was, the more spectacle becomes the driving creative priority, the less thoughtful or challenging the films can become. The spectacle of Mad Max is underpinned not only multiple layers of plot and character but also by an almost lost cinematic sense of ‘how did they do that?’ The best thing art can do is make you think, make you re-evaluate the opinions you thought were yours. It’s interesting to see how a cerebral film maker like Christopher Nolan, took on Batman and made it something more adult, more challenging, chasing Frank Miller’s peerless Dark Knight into a slightly less murky world of questionable morality and violence. But even these films are ultimately driven by market forces and somebody somewhere will want to soften the edges, so that toys and lunch boxes can be sold. In that respect, Bruce Wayne’s fascistic vigilantism was never really held to account, however interesting Nolan doubtless found that idea. Did he have an abiding love of Batman or was it a means of making his kind of movie on the mainstream stage?
Fantasy in all its forms is probably the most potent of social metaphors and as such can be complex and poetic. No one could ever accuse Game of Thrones of being childish. George RR Martin clearly saw the swords and sorcery genre as a fertile means to express his musings on ambition, power and lust. Perhaps it milieu makes it more commercial though, would a straight up historical drama have lasted so long? Maybe Game of Thrones wouldn’t have been made at all ten years ago. A world without Game of Thrones?! if Baudrillard had predicted that, I probably would have dropped out of university and become a cobbler**.
The point of all this is just to get my position clear. I’m not out of the fold, my passions and preoccupations remain. Sometimes it’s good to look at the state of the union and make sure we’re getting the best we can get. On one hand it’s a wonderful thing, having what used to be fringe concerns, suddenly ruling the mainstream but at the same time, these concerns have also been monetised and marketed and the things that made them precious to us, aren’t always the primary concern (right, Star Trek OST fans?)
Also, it’s good to ask why we like this stuff, what makes it so alluring, so discussed, so sacred. Do we channel our passion and indignation into ephemera, rather than reality? Not just science fiction and fantasy but gossip and talent shows and nostalgia and people’s arses. Is it right? Is it dangerous? Something to discuss over a game of 3D chess, perhaps.
Speaking of which I better climb aboard the old hypocropter and fly back to writing Star Trek Beyond.
In short:
I love Science Fiction and fantasy and do not think it’s all childish.
I do not think it is all generated by dominant forces as a direct means of control…much.
I am still a nerd and proud.
Love and rockets,
Simon
p.s. Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan are also Stormtroopers in The Force Awakens.
*Those type of films are made today but not by big studios. Before Star Wars, SciFi and Fantasy were seen as B movie fodder, that the big studios were wary of. Alan Ladd Jnr really doesn’t get the credit he deserves for backing George Lucas.
**No disrespect to cobblers, I merely intended to allude to a profession that would not fill my days with fantasy. Not that cobblers can’t enjoy fantasy, they can. After all, some of them are magic elves who only come out at night to save a poor husband and wife from destitution. Surely a metaphor for the invisible underclass, enabling social mobility among the executive echelons of the pre war working class.