Puppeteers Sid and Marty Krofft are still pulling the strings:
Universal Pictures has just finished principal photography on a $100-million adaptation of “Land of the Lost,” the mid-1970s Krofft show about a family stranded in a jungle teeming with dinosaurs and hissing reptile-men called Sleestak.
Seriously, a $100-million adaptation of Land of the Lost? It gets wackier:
The remake is a comedy starring Will Ferrell, and Universal has circled it as its big popcorn movie for summer 2009.
The strange case of the superheroes, the geeks and the studios explains that Comic-con is put on by a non-profit entity:
I posited to the folks that put together Comic-con that not only might they be making a wack-load more money if they went into business — or at least had a for-profit arm — but that they might even be better at fulfilling their stated mission. Why let the studios make all this money off their backs? Some obvious profit-maximizing efforts for Comic-con would include raising ticket prices or moving the whole event — which sells out and bursts the seams of San Diego’s convention center — to a bigger venue like Las Vegas. Variety recently noted that the event’s $75 four-day passes were being scalped for as much as $300.Here’s a quick financial profile, based on Comic-con’s most recent publicly-available financial statement, for the fiscal year ended August 2006: The company earned roughly $1 million on revenues of nearly $6 million, and had some $5 million in retained earnings. Only four full-time employees make more than $50,000, and the highest paid made $76,000 that year. One of the four, marketing chief David Glanzer, told me eagerly that the convention “isn’t about the money, it’s about the content. We’re a group of fans trying to put on a show.”
I didn’t realize that the jewel game from Kipling’s Kim had been dubbed Kim’s Game and popularized in real life:
Kim, a teenager being trained in secret as a spy, spends a month in Simla, India at the home of Mr. Lurgan, who ostensibly runs a jewel shop but in truth is engaged in espionage for the British against the Russians. Lurgan brings out a copper tray and tosses a handful of jewels onto it; his boy servant explains to Kim:
Look on them as long as thou wilt, stranger. Count and, if need be, handle. One look is enough for me. When thou hast counted and handled and art sure that thou canst remember them all, I cover them with this paper, and thou must tell over the tally to Lurgan Sahib. I will write mine.They contest the game many times, sometimes with jewels, sometimes with odd objects, and sometimes with photographs of people. It is considered a vital part of training in observation; Lurgan says:
[Do] it many times over till it is done perfectly — for it is worth doing.In his book Scouting Games, Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of scouting, names the exercise Kim’s Game and describes it as follows:
The Scoutmaster should collect on a tray a number of articles — knives, spoons, pencil, pen, stones, book and so on — not more than about fifteen for the first few games, and cover the whole over with a cloth. He then makes the others sit round, where they can see the tray, and uncovers it for one minute. Then each of them must make a list on a piece of paper of all the articles he can remember… The one who remembers most wins the game.
Kindle 2.0 Coming Around October 2008:
An insider let slip that two new Amazon Kindle models will hit stores this holiday season, with the first coming as early as October.The first is an updated version with the same sized screen, a smaller form factor, and an improved interface. The source told us that Amazon has “skipped three or four generations,” comparing the old Kindle to the 1st gen iPod and the new version to something like the sexy iPod Mini.
The second new model, which is shaped like an 8 1/2 x 11-inch piece of paper, is considerably bigger than the current model and should be available next year.
Both models should come in multiple colors and may be aimed at younger readers.
In Dark Knight Shift, JR Minkel of Scientific American interviews E. Paul Zehr on why Batman could exist — but not for long:
How would Batman get enough rest?
The difficulty for Batman is he’s going to be trying to sleep during the day. He’s going to be really tired, actually, unless he can shift himself over to just being up at night. If he were just a nocturnal guy, he would actually be a lot healthier and have a lot better sleep than if he were doing what he does now, which is getting some light here and there. That’s going to mess up his sleep patterns and duration of sleep.Wouldn’t fighting Gotham’s thugs every night take its toll?
The biggest unreal part of the way Batman’s portrayed is the nature of his injuries. Most of the time, in the comics and in the movies, even when he wins, he usually winds up taking a pretty good beating. There’s a real failure to show the cumulative effect of that. The next day he’s shown out there doing the same thing again. He’d likely be quite tired and injured.Is there any indication in the comics of how long Batman’s career lasts?
The comics are really vague on this, of course. In Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, he deliberately shows an aging Batman coming back after he’s retired, and he highlights him being tired and weaker. Somewhere around age 50 to 55, he should probably retire. His performance is going down. He’s always facing younger adversaries. That is well at the end of when he’s going to be able to defend himself and be able to not have to deal that lethal force. This was actually shown in an animated series called Batman Beyond.Oh right. It’s the future; Batman is old and he trains a kid to replace him.
You’re familiar with that one? What we learn is that Batman, when he was older but before he retired, actually picked up a gun against a thug because he had to. His skills had let him down so that he wasn’t able to defend himself without harming another person. So that’s when he decided to retire.How would all those beat-downs have affected his longevity?
Keeping in mind that being Batman means never losing: If you look at consecutive events where professional fighters have to defend their titles—Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Ultimate Fighters—the longest period you’re going to find is about two to three years. That dovetails nicely with the average career for NFL running backs. It’s about three years. (That’s the statistic I got from the NFL Players Association Web site.) The point is, it’s not very long. It’s really hard to become Batman in the first place, and it’s hard to maintain it when you get there.
I believe Dr. Zehr has overlooked a key aspect of being the Batman — he doesn’t fight fair. Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot, and the Dark Knight plays on their fears, while choosing the time and place of his attack.
I can’t say I agree with Zehr’s training advice either:
What’s a realistic training regimen?
I didn’t give a training manual in my book, but he’d want to do specialized weight training to build up an ability to work at a really high rate for maybe 30 seconds to a minute (the maximum time period associated with his fights). One of the early comics shows him holding an enormous weight over his head. That’s not the right kind of adaptation toward punching and kicking. He’s got to make sure he’s doing all the skill training at the same time so that he’s actually using the (physical) adaptations he’s slowly gaining. In conventional martial arts, when people take weapons training, you’re doing a kind of power-strength training.What effects would all that training have on Bruce Wayne’s body?
I looked up what DC Comics and some other books said (about Batman’s physique). I settled on the estimate that Bruce Wayne started off at about six-foot-two and 185 pounds. I gave him a body fat of 20 percent (slightly below average) and a body mass index of 26. Let’s say after 10 or 15 years, after he’s become the Batman, he’s weighing about 210 pounds and has a body fat of 10 percent. He’s probably gained 40 pounds of muscle. His bones will actually be more dense, kind of the opposite of osteoporosis.Are we talking freakishly dense bones?
The percentage change is actually quite small—maybe 10 percent. In judo, where people do a lot of grappling and throwing, you’re going to have more density in the long bones of the trunk. In karate and other martial arts where they’re doing a lot of kicking, there’s going to be a lot higher density in the legs. Muay Thai (kickboxing) is a great example. They’re always doing these low shin kicks. They try to condition the body by kicking progressively harder objects and for longer.
Lifting an enormous weight overhead — i.e. doing a clean & jerk — is excellent training for building up the muscles, bones, tendons, and ligaments of the legs and core, which are used extensively in judo — and in jumping from rooftop to rooftop. But Zehr is a Chito-Ryu karate-do practitioner who, I suppose, rarely jumps from rooftop to rooftop.
What Batman needs is a cross-fit routine with an emphasis on judo/jiu-jitsu, kickboxing, and parkour.
Also, I’d hardly say that Bruce Wayne was 185 lbs. at 20 percent body-fat before training. First, he started training as a teen — his parents were killed while he was a child — and, second, even a mildly active young man can be, say, 8 percent body-fat without really trying.
Moebius Redux offers a fascinating look at French illustrator Jean Giraud, perhaps best known, under the pseudonym of Moebius, for co-creating the adult comic Métal Hurlant, which spawned an American version, Heavy Metal.
If you know Heavy Metal from the movie, then you might recognize Moebius’s work indirectly, from the last sequence, Taarna, which was based on his Arzach stories — but with his protagonist replaced by a hawt chick.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Giraud made a life-changing trip to Mexico when he was in art school — and that he went back and had an even more life-changing trip there that included some hallucinogenic mushrooms. It shows in his art.
I was shocked to find out that Giraud worked on a film adaptation of Dune for Alejandro Jodorowsky. They had funding but couldn’t arrange American distribution, so the project got cancelled. Not only did the project have Giraud doing design work, but also H. R. Giger — and he’s as creepy as you might expect.
That team went on to do Alien.
Also, Giraud’s artwork for the Dan O’Bannon short story comic “The Long Tomorrow” was a key visual reference for Blade Runner.
(Hat tip to Drawn!)
Mikey Burnett Sues The Ultimate Fighter for — get this — failing to provide a safe environment:
Mikey Burnett, one of the original Lion’s Den members, has filed suit in Clark County District Court against TufGuy Productions, Inc. d/b/a Ultimate Fighting Productions, Inc., the company that produces “The Ultimate Fighter” for Spike TV, as well as American International Group, Inc., an accident and health insurance company associated with the TV show.According to the lawsuit filed on June 9, Burnett claims alleged negligence against the defendants, who “carelessly, recklessly and negligently failed to provide a safe environment for the Ultimate Fighter 4 participants.”
Specifically, the 34-year-old Burnett states that he suffered a career-ending spinal injury during the show’s tapings.
Burnett served as a competitor on the series’ fourth season entitled “The Comeback,” where UFC figures of old and not-so-old got a second chance at glory in the Octagon. Burnett’s appearance on the show, which aired from August-November 2006, ended years of obscurity the Tulsa, Okla. fighter endured after personal struggles with alcohol abuse, injuries and a horrendous recluse spider bite.
An intriguing character from his 1998 bouts at UFC 16 and 18, Burnett flamed out on the show when he failed to reach the finals.
The punchline:
During his tenure inside the ‘TUF’ house, the show aired Burnett running into a wall to stave off boredom.
Perhaps he needs a home with rubber walls.
The new Quantum of Solace teaser trailer is out:
As I mentioned before, the odd title comes from a story by Bond creator Ian Fleming that appears in the collection For Your Eyes Only — but the original is not a story about Bond; it’s a story told to Bond. Fleming saw it as a way to write a story in the style of W Somerset Maugham — and to see it published. The movie screenplay is not an adaptation of that story but a continuation of Casino Royale.
Post-punk pioneer band Devo is suing McDonald’s over its New Wave Nigel Happy Meal doll, which sports the band’s signature red flower pot hat:
In April the fast food chain released a series of American Idol Happy Meal toys in the US based on a range of music genres, including Disco Dave, Country Clay, Rockin’ Riley and Soulful Selma.Devo’s complaint relates to New Wave Nigel, a toy kitted out in an orange jumpsuit, pink shades, and Devo’s “energy dome” hat.
[...]
“This New Wave Nigel doll that they’ve created is just a complete Devo rip-off and the red hat is exactly the red hat that I designed, and it’s copyrighted and trademarked.“They didn’t ask us anything. Plus, we don’t like McDonald’s, and we don’t like American Idol, so we’re doubly offended.”
(Hat tip to BoingBoing.)
Dark Knight Director Shuns Digital Effects for the Real Thing — but not totally:
“So we got an Imax shot of Christian Bale as Batman standing on top of the Sears Tower,” Pfister says. “Here we are with our principal actor standing on the edge of one of the tallest buildings in the world. I think a lot of people will assume that’s CGI.” Perhaps, but when you see the shot (featured in the first trailer), your eye instinctively detects something different, something thrilling and rare: photographic reality.Settling for anything less, Nolan feared, would send the Batman franchise back into camp and mummery. That’s why he transported his hero to the very real city of Hong Kong. Unfortunately, the real world has its drawbacks. “The Chinese government was a nightmare in terms of filming stuff,” Pfister sighs. “They wanted to limit the amount of helicopter activity over the city.”
And Nolan needed helicopters. He especially wanted to minimize digital meddling in those high-altitude Imax sequences. His reasons were both aesthetic and practical: Imax film stock is enormous, roughly 10 times the size of 35-mm celluloid, and it soaks up a vast amount of visual information. Those dimensions are what make the image so rich and sharp, even spread over a screen the size of a blimp hangar. While conventional films are digitized at 2K resolution (2,000 pixels across), or 4K at most, adding visual effects to Imax footage requires digitizing each frame at up to 8K. In other words, the difficulty and expense of doing f/x rise exponentially with the size of the negative.
If I may geek out here for a moment — math-geek out, that is — the expense of doing f/x should rise polynomially — quadratically, in fact — with the (linear) size of the negative. An image with twice as many pixels across should have four times as many pixels total — two squared.
What? Why are you looking at me like that?
In reviewing Blake Bell’s Strange and Stranger — about the artist-creator of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange — Geoff Boucher declares Steve Ditko the strident hermit king of comics:
For students of comics history, there are few names that strike the ear and the imagination quite like Ditko’s. In a field defined by brilliant oddballs, embittered journeymen, penniless geniuses and colorful hacks, Ditko is the strident hermit king. He gave the world Spider-Man but then more or less bugged out, deciding in 1969 to stop doing interviews and making public appearances. Now 80, Ditko lives in New York City, and although you can track down his studio, nobody I know who’s done so has gotten past the front step. It’s not that Ditko is unfriendly — he’s willing to talk, apparently (in one case, for more than an hour), but only while standing in his doorway, blocking any view into his home and his life.If you’re a journalist, however, it’s a different story. Last year, the BBC aired a documentary, “In Search of Steve Ditko,” in which reporter Jonathan Ross, accompanied by Neil Gaiman, sought an audience with Ditko. He refused to speak on camera, which only reinforces the idea of him as the J.D. Salinger of super-hero comics. This, I suppose, makes Peter Parker a wall-crawling Holden Caulfield.
When Ditko drew Peter Parker, he drew him as a nerd — a proto-nerd, I suppose — which made perfect sense for the character, but later artists drew him as just another idealized male. Boucher gives this description of Ditko’s style:
Although Ditko grew up loving the art of Jerry Robinson and Will Eisner, for much of his career, he had a spindly and off-kilter style that rubbed the heroic off the page and replaced it with an odd, anxious ballet of the surreal and the grotesque.
The recent Doctor Strange: The Sorcerer Supreme DVD played down Ditko’s “anxious ballet of the surreal and the grotesque” as well as Stan Lee’s impressive-sounding mystic mumbo-jumbo, which always alluded to otherworldly things you assumed someone understood.
Ditko is also famous for creating the Question — and infamous for creating Mr. A — which both inspired Alan Moore‘s Rorschach, from The Watchmen.
I can’t say I was an early bird as a child — and I certainly wasn’t as a teenager — but orders from my secret superhero commander would definitely have launched me into action at any hour. Wake up, First Sun Warrior of the Morning!
Japanese toy company People has released a new age alarm clock that supposedly helps kids wake up by turning them into Ultraman. It’s called the Okiro! Asa Ichiban Taiyou Senshi — Charenjaa Kitto (Wake Up! First Sun Warrior of the Morning — Challenger Kit) and was manufactured for the Japanese Ministry of Education “early to bed early to rise” program. The $38 kit comes with the extravagant eye shield and helmet; a series of talismans and message cards (no doubt world-saving secret missions); and a 27-day program that will involve your child taking orders from “the commander.”
The commander wakes the child up at 6 a.m., and prompts players to put on the helmet and hit a “roger” button to acknowledge their wakefulness. Then, they are ordered to count to 10 in five different languages: English, Japanese, German, Swahili and Malagasy. At that point, the player is “allowed to take off the equipment and start the day.”
(Hat tip to Tyler Cowen.)
It’s hard to believe that Big Bird and Snuffleupagus were created by a costume designer named Kermit Love. He also worked for some of ballet’s most renowned choreographers. He just passed away, at age 91 — which the New York Times reported with some not-so-subtle subtext:
The cause was congestive heart failure, said Christopher Lyall, Mr. Love’s partner of 50 years.
Mr. Love played Willy the Hot Dog Man on the show — a character I do not remember — and helped design Oscar the Grouch and Cookie Monster, but he insisted he was not the namesake of the famous frog.
Scholars set date for Odysseus’ bloody homecoming:
Using clues from star and sun positions mentioned by the ancient Greek poet Homer, scholars think they have determined the date when King Odysseus returned from the Trojan War and slaughtered a group of suitors who had been pressing his wife to marry one of them.
It was on April 16, 1178 B.C. that the great warrior struck with arrows, swords and spears, killing those who sought to replace him, a pair of researchers say in Monday’s online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
[...]
Homer reports that on the day of the slaughter the sun is blotted from the sky, possibly a reference to an eclipse. In addition, he mentions more than once that it is the time of a new moon, which is necessary for a total eclipse, the researchers say.Other clues include:
- Six days before the slaughter, Venus is visible and high in the sky.
- Twenty-nine days before, two constellations — the Pleiades and Bootes — are simultaneously visible at sunset.
- And 33 days before, Mercury is high at dawn and near the western end of its trajectory. This is the researchers’ interpretation, anyway. Homer wrote that Hermes, the Greek name for Mercury, traveled far west to deliver a message.
Fruit is Un-American, as Colbert explains:
“Me have crazy times in 70s and 80s!”
(He also closes the show with the same special guest.)