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Iron Man gets real

Iron Man gets real

If the fighter jet scenes in next year’s Iron Man movie look very realistic, that’s because they were filmed at Edwards Air Force Base with about a dozen Marines, 150 Airmen, and real Air Force aircraft – and some of the newest stuff at that!

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Lt. Col. Jim Rhodes (Terrence Howard) share what the American Forces Press Service described as a "heated scene" in front of 20 Air Force "pilots" — all active-duty airmen and Marines who auditioned to be extras — between a  F-22 Raptor and a bulb-nosed Global Hawk.

Director Jon Favreau said brought realism to Iron Man.  "This is the best back lot you could ever have," he said. "Every angle you shoot is authentic: desert, dry lake beds, hangars."

"This is a movie about superheroes, and my son might watch it," Sergeant Danny Vaughn told the American Forces Press Service. He’s hoping 7-year-old Danny III will get to see his dad acting as 2nd Lt. Eric Huppert, one of Rhodie’s pilots in the hangar, or as an Army special operations Soldier walking across the camera during the previous day’s shoot.

Iron Man is scheduled for release in May, 2008.

(Special thanks to John Tebbel for the legwork.)

Could it be… magic?

Could it be… magic?

Some of us are total suckers for magic. I mean, let’s be honest, all that super-science stuff that purports to explain how people have superpowers and everything — how different is that really than just saying "He flies? She shoots beams from her eyes? It’s magic!"

To some of us it’s all much of a muchness, but superhero comics universes are peculiar about that sort of thing, they seem to demand differing levels of disbelief-suspension depending on whether we’re talking about Batman or the Spectre, Spidey or Dr. Strange.

At both Marvel and DC, magic is a part of their fictional universes but, like religion, is usually distinguished from the mythmaking involving superscience. The DC Universe has had a number of recent stories dealing with a transformation of how magic works in that fictional milieu, and now Marvel’s about to undergo a similar shift in their interpretation of the fantastic.

For my money, even though I’m not paying for it, the best story currently dealing with DC’s attitude towards magic and superheroes is the Doctor Thirteen backup tale currently running in Tales of the Unexpected, wherein superscience and magic and nonsense and fourth-wall breaking all collide in a fun romp that proves DC is well schooled on how to puncture its own pomposity. Maybe it’s not Ambush Bug-level surreality, but you can’t go wrong with talking pirate gorillas, parodies of the 52 writers, and Infectious Lass.

Now Marvel’s gearing up for their own big magic event this summer, Mystic Arcana, leading off with, appropriately enough, a Magik one-shot written by one of my personal heroes, Louise Simonson.  Firm believers in not being able to tell the players without a scorecard, Marvel’s also bringing out a companion guide called Mystic Arcana: The Book of Marvel Magic, 64 pages of bios and character sketches and probably not storytelling.

Meanwhile, Scott at Polite Dissent decries the use of the "humans only use 10% of their brains" misinformation employed so often in comic book fiction as a way of introducing magical (or even superhuman) abilities.  Dang, there goes about 90% of the captioning for future origin stories!

Star Trek’s Scotty back on Earth…

Star Trek’s Scotty back on Earth…

As Montgomery Scott could tell you, things don’t always work out the way they were intended.

Some of the ashes of actor James Doohan, who played Chief Engineer in the classic Star Trek teevee series and movies, were launced into outer space on April 29th. Some of the late astronaut Gordon Cooper accompanied Doohan on the ride.

The capsule was scheduled to return to Earth, and so it did, in the New Mexico desert. Where it has yet to be found.

Space Services Inc. spokeswoman Susan Schonfeld told Reuters news service "The terrain is very mountainous; it’s not somewhere that you can walk or drive to. My understanding is that it will take some time to get up into there."

Blaming the problem on "horrendous" weather, Schonfeld concluded "they know the general location, and we have the utmost confidence that they will recover it."

Superman Returns wins most Saturn Awards

Superman Returns wins most Saturn Awards

Variety reports that Superman Returns was top movie winner at the Saturn Awards.  These awards are presented by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films.

Superman Returns won as best fantasy film, best director (Bryan Singer), best actor (Brandon Routh), best script (Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty) and best score (John Ottman). 

Children of Men was the best science fiction film, The Descent was the best horror film, and Cars was the best animated film.

Heroes was awarded the prize as best network television show, and Battlestar Galactica won for best cable or syndicated series.  Masi Oka and Hayden Panettiere took best supporting actor and actress awards.

Full list after the jump…

(more…)

Bionic Woman Returns

Bionic Woman Returns

NBC has picked up David Eick’s remake of The Bionic Woman for the 2007 -2008 season.

Eick was best known for his work as executive producer of the remake of Battlestar Galactica, running on NBC’s Sci-Fi Network. Now he’s best known as teevee’s go-to guy for science ficiton teevee revivals.

The revisioned series stars British actress Michelle Ryan as Jaime Sommers. Eick has said that they only used the title of the series as their starting point and that the show will go in its own direction. So we know Ryan will have a chip on her shoulder – as well as everyplace else – and, well, that she’s a woman.

Galactica‘s Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) co-stars in the pilot as the mandatory evil bionic woman. Whereas she worked on this during her brief time-off from Galactica, since Eick wrote the pilot we shouldn’t be astonished if we see her come back – certainly, after Galactica wraps its next and final season.

No word on any reappearance of The Six Million Dollar Man. Today, six mill wouldn’t buy you a used Dalek.

 

MICHAEL DAVIS: What about me? What about my needs?

MICHAEL DAVIS: What about me? What about my needs?

I have no idea what this piece will be about. I really don’t. I’m sitting in a Chicago airport waiting to get a plane back to L.A. and my mind is a complete blank. I sent my last Straight No Chaser in last night (Wednesday) and I am determined to get a jump on my next one. The problem is I usually wait until something bugs me or interests me before I start my weekly rant. I would call this another random thought article but I have no thoughts random or otherwise.

Let’s see, lets see. Well I got another angry email. This one was about what I said about how my dogs are pets and not a member of my family. People are really passionate about their dogs, eh?

 

There is a TV show called Me or the Dog. I think it’s on Animal Planet. This show is about how dogs run the lives of people. There was a woman on one of these shows who actually said she preferred her dogs to her husband and son. She said if given a choice between her family and the dogs she would put the family out of the home before the dogs. I think she thinks she’s a dog. Well if she thinks she’s a dog then I will address this in a way she would understand.

That bitch is crazy.

Ah, I have found my rant for this week… ranting!! One of my absolute favorite TV shows is Cheaters. I love that show! Every week the show exposes someone who is cheating on his or her partner. Here’s what I don’t understand: when you find out your husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, sheep etc. is cheating on you, why are you mad at the person they were cheating with? Shouldn’t you be mad at the person who cheated on you? Being mad at the other party is like being mad at the mailman for bringing you your phone bill.

Well, mark my words someday Joey (the host) is going to put that camera in the wrong person’s face and BLAM! Can you imagine what will happen if they run up against that guy or girl?

Fade in: The Cheaters crew prepares to jump out of their band. Joey turns to the client, Lewannabe.

Joey: Would you like a chance to confront Ray Ray?

Lewannabe: No, you go ahead Joey. I’m not crazy.

Joey jumps out of the van with his crew and confronts Ray Ray.

Joey: Ray Ray, I’m Joey Greco from Cheaters. Do you want to explain why you are cheating on your wife Lewannabe?

Ray Ray: I’m not.

Joey; We have you on tape.

Ray Ray: That’s not me.

Joey: Really, well let’s just look at the tape.

Ray Ray on tape: I like cheating on my wife, my name is Ray Ray.

Joey: Still say that’s not you?

Ray Ray: That’s not me; it’s my twin brother.

Ray Ray on tape: If Cheaters ever shows up I will say it’s my twin brother and not me.

Ray Ray has produced a handgun and is pointing it at Joey’s face.

Joey: You know that does not look like you at all Ray Ray. What were we thinking?

Joey: (Yelling) Lewannabe! Why did you waste our time??

(more…)

More bad Spider-Man merchandise

More bad Spider-Man merchandise

We haven’t picked on Spidey licensing in what, days? Clearly we’re overdue, and stringer Lisa Sullivan pointed us to this find:

Note the prominent, ah, selling points. Follow the original link to see bigger pictures or to get the contact information for Sideshow Collectibles.

Silver Surfing lessons’

Silver Surfing lessons’

Let’s face it, until he hears that there’s going to be a sequel to the sequel, there just isn’t going to be much call for a silver guy in movies unless they make another Terminator film or they decide to start handing out runner-up awards at the Oscars.

So if you’re stranded on Earth, how else are you going to raise some cash?

Radd, dude. Totally Radd.

Lucas: Spidey silly, more Star Wars not

Lucas: Spidey silly, more Star Wars not

Okay, let me get this straight — the Spider-Man movies are silly, but Jar-Jar Binks is a nifty idea?

Ohh-kay.  Glad we cleared that one up.

George Lucas tells Fox News‘ Roger Friedman, regarding Spidey, "It’s a silly movie. There just isn’t much there. Once you take it all apart, there’s not much story, is there? People thought Star Wars was silly, too. But it wasn’t." 

Oh, and he’s making two more live-action Star Wars films for TV, which he tells Friedman should be about an hour each, "but they won’t have members of the Skywalker family as characters. They will be other people of that milieu." 

Are Tag and Bink too much to hope for, or are they just too silly?

Today’s odd photos

Today’s odd photos

When every little bit of hope is gone, sad songs and photos say so much.

This is being advertised on lots of UK sites at the moment, and reportedly being used not only by people gearing up for the convention in Bristol but by Labour Party sources looking for a replacement for Tony Blair. And speaking of politics:

Don’t ask, do tell. From Feminists for Colbert.

Lastly, anyone following the lolcat phenomenon (more about that here ) doesn’t need to be told what this is.  I cannot believe there’s a whole subset of sites out there dedicated to Dr. Who lolcats. This one’s from the Blog of Boe. And as many of you doubtless know, there’s also a truncated and much-beloved Star Trek episode done in lolcat-speak. Could I make this stuff up? Not before my morning tea.

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