Archive Category: Movies & SciFi
5 Voice Actors Who Certainly Don’t Look the Part
Quick: who voiced the sultriest pig of all, Miss Piggy? Would you believe that it was an old bald guy with glasses (Frank Oz)?
Asylum has a short yet highly entertaining post about the five voice actors whose faces certainly didn’t fit the characters they played: Link
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Terminator Timeline
Now that Terminator Salvation is in theaters, Cracked has attempted to create a timeline that explains how the various time-travel plots work. Some things to remember:
1. Time travel in a Terminator movie is like plumbing in a porno: a very loose excuse to get to the action.
2. Anyone expecting accuracy is missing the point (and having much less fun than everyone else).
3. With that said, here is our attempt to construct a sensible time line of the franchise.
Note: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is not included in this project. Link -via Digg
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Colin: a Zombie-Flick Made With $70 and Facebook Volunteer Zombies
Marc Price of Nowhere Fast Productions sparked a media frenzy with his first feature film: a low-budget a zombie flick titled Colin. And when Marc said low-budget, he meant low-budget. The whole thing was shot for $70, and the zombies came free with the help of Facebook!
Tom Foster wrote the story for CNN:
"When we say it’s a low budget film, people presume a couple of hundred thousand [dollars]. People can’t figure out how it’s possible. What Marc’s achieved has left people astonished."
It was by advertising for volunteer zombies on social networking site Facebook, borrowing make-up from Hollywood blockbusters and teaching himself how to produce special effects that thrifty director Price was able to make the film for less than the price of a zombie DVD box set.
"The approach was to say to people, ‘OK guys, we don’t have any money, so bring your own equipment,’" the the 30 year-old director told CNN.
With help from a makeshift band of friends and volunteers, Price shot and edited the feature — which ingeniously spins the zombie genre on it’s head by telling the story entirely from the zombie’s perspective — over a period of 18 months while working nights part-time as a booker for a taxi company.
Online social networking was an invaluable tool in both generating buzz and cheaply sourcing the undead: "We went on Facebook and MySpace and said ‘Who wants to be a zombie?’" Price told CNN. "We managed to get 50 brilliantly made up zombies and stuff them into a living room."
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Coming Soon to a Galaxy Far, Far Away: Stitch Wars
Image via Cutesypoo
What do you get when you mix crafty people and Star Wars? Why, an art show called Stitch Wars, of course. It is coming to the Bear and Bird Gallery in Lauderhill, Florida, in July 2009.
The website isn’t active yet (it just redirects to the Bear and Bird Gallery’s website), but I can’t wait to see what crafty Star Wars fans came up with …
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Star Wars AT-AT Cake
Photo: Da Clapper [Flickr]
We’ve seen a number of very cool Star Wars cakes, but this one definitely takes the cake. Behold the AT-AT Cake by Jennifer Luxmore of Sin Desserts. Great White Snark has more: Link
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10 Failed Toy Lines Based on Movies
Because Star Wars created a demand for movie toys (and none existed when the movie premiered), toy companies now make them available before they know whether the movie is a hit or a bomb. This makes for lots of wasted product when a movie tanks. Topless Robot has ten examples they should have seen coming. I had no idea there were action figures for Battlefield Earth! I want one, just for the kitsch value. Link -via Digg
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Man vs Cat in The Great Race
Martin Humphreys of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England has a one-eyed cat named Midge he adopted from a rescue center 12 years ago. For five years now, Midge has accompanied Humphreys on his daily run and hates to finish behind him.
When his workplace offered a £1,000 competition for employees to fulfil a dream, he won after proposing a children’s film about Midge’s peculiar talent.
The result, The Great Race, has been selected for the Short Film Corner at Cannes and Mr Humphreys, who wrote, directed and penned the theme song for the eight-minute production, is flying out to the French Riviera to show it to Hollywood executives. It is believed to be the lowest budget offering at the festival – the opening night film, Pixar animation Up, cost $150 million to make.
Midge is not attending the film festival. Link to story with film trailer. Link to video report. -via Arbroath
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Klingon… Musical?
The new Star Trek movie may not have the Klingon language in it, but Klingons may have the last laugh yet. They have center stage in a renewal of a long-lost art form: the Klingon opera.
Every culture has its epic tales of mighty warriors. Odysseus blinds the Cyclops. Beowulf rips out the arm of Grendel. For Klingons, there’s Kahless, who dices 500 warriors with a sword forged from his own hair and some help from the Lady Lukara. To celebrate their victory, they make love in the ankle-deep blood.
The story of Kahless the Unforgettable is a cornerstone of Klingon mythology, as told in the opera u. Members of the Klingon Terran Research Ensemble — based in The Hague, the Netherlands — have been workshopping u for the last year with an ambitious goal: to mount the first authentic performances of Klingon opera here on earth.
“The first time I read that proposal, I thought they were freaks,” says Jorn Weisbrodt, the creative director for the Byrd Hoffman Watermill Foundation in New York. “But they’re really being very serious. And I think it really is the result that matters, and I found the result quite fascinating and interesting and strange and weird.”
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
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Fictional Characters, Actual Colleges
Characters from TV and movies are often placed in a real college setting. In today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss, you’re asked to identify the real college in the background of 13 fictional characters. My wild guesses brought me a score of 38%. You will do better! Link
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7 Kids Guaranteed to Become Trekkies
Momlogic posted a collection of YouTube videos featuring babies and young children who are taking on the roles of Star Trek characters, including Starfleet crew members, Klingons, Ferengi, and even the Enterprise itself. Beam me up, Teddy! Link -via Buzzfeed
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Movie Trivia: Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
I haven’t seen the original Ocean’s Eleven (blasphemy, I know), but I know I like this one quite a bit, even though it’s not the type of movie I would normally gravitate toward. Before we get to the trivia, we’ll do a quick cast recap:
Danny Ocean - George Clooney
Rusty Ryan - Brad Pitt
Frank Catton - Bernie Mac
Reuben Tishkoff - Elliott Gould
Virgil Malloy - Casey Affleck
Turk Malloy - Scott Caan
Livingston Dell - Eddie Jemison
Yen - Shaobo Qin
Saul Bloom - Carl Reiner
Linus Caldwell - Matt Damon
Basher Tarr - Don Cheadle
Tess Ocean - Julia Roberts
The casinos all gave the cast and crew more or less free reign of when and where they could shoot in the casinos. The exception, of course, were the money vaults and any behind-the-scenes corridors and things like that. Those were shot on a soundstage. It was a particularly big deal that Caesar’s Palace allowed them to film a scene depicting a robber being shot directly in front of their place (during the flashback scenes of previous Vegas heists at the beginning). Steven Soderbergh credited this entirely to Jerry Weintraub’s Vegas connections.
Carl Reiner accepted his role just five days before the first scene with his character was scheduled to be shot. Alan Arkin was supposed to play Saul but had to drop out at the last minute.
Brad Pitt is wearing a very large ring shown prominently in the scene where Rusty cons the young stars. He later mentioned that it was given to him by his wife and making sure it was caught on camera was his little to wink to her. At the time, his wife was Jennifer Aniston.
Matt Damon was such an adept pickpocket that the part near the beginning where he steals the wallet from a man on the el actually had to be slowed down so viewers could catch what he was doing.
Shaobo had never acted before. He didn’t speak much English but was very adept at understanding when his lines were and had a natural knack for timing (according to Steven Soderbergh).
Rusty Ryan is always eating because, basically, Brad Pitt thought it would be funny and appropriate - since these guys are always on the go in the movie, he thought that they would probably be eating on the go as well. It became a running joke to pick out and incorporate food for each of his scenes.
The directors, set designers and writers all purposely stayed away from obvious Rat Pack and Sinatra references. They wanted the movie to stand on its own and didn’t want to make the characters complete cliches.
The movie’s whole premise - that casinos have to keep enough money in their vaults to cover every chip currently in play on the floor - is a lie. In reality, casinos try very hard to keep the amount of extra cash in their vaults down to a minimum.
It’s commonly believed that Ben Affleck has a little cameo somewhere in the movie - after all, his best friend and brother were two of the Eleven. Although he did come to set, he is never actually in the movie. Director Steven Soderbergh and Producer Jerry Weintraub have cameos, though. Soderbergh is part of the group that bombs the vault at the beginning and Weintraub talks with Saul before Saul goes to talk with Terry Benedict.
This tidbit is lifted directly from TV Guide, but it’s too interesting to not include: When Rusty runs through the list of scams the group is going to have to pull, the names he gives them aren’t just random. The quote: “Off the top of my head, I’d say you’re looking at a Boeski, a Jim Brown, a Miss Daisy, two Jethros and a Leon Spinks, not to mention the biggest Ella Fitzgerald ever.”
And the explanation from Steven Soderbergh:
“First of all, [screenwriter] Ted Griffin and I completely made the terms up. We felt we had to come up with some funny, Damon Runyon-esque turns of phrase that weren’t arbitrary we did sit down and think them out. So, Carl Reiner is the Boesky, as in Ivan, the powerful, rich magnate, inside kind of guy. Jim Brown is the confrontation Bernie Mac has with Matt Damon the ‘don’t mess with me or you’re in for it’ moment. The two Jethros are Casey Affleck and Scott Caan, the idea being ‘we’re going to need gear heads, car fanatics…some people who are total hillbilly under-the-hood guys.’ A Leon Spinks is the disruption of the boxing match: A sporting event with some controversy to it that’s what Leon Spinks means to me. The Miss Daisy association is driving; that was the SWAT van, a ruse involving transportation. The Ella Fitzgerald is the tape of the fake vault, which they’re going to play back and have [Andy Garcia's character] Benedict think it’s live. ‘Is it live, or is it Memorex?’”
There are at least a couple of points in the movie where Steven Soderbergh didn’t want to meticulously arrange 11 actors, so he gave them the freedom to go where they wanted within the shot and do what they thought their characters would do. The first is when Danny Ocean is explaining the whole scam to them - Soderbergh told the actors to just position themselves wherever they wanted to in the room. The second is at the end when they are all standing in front of the Bellagio reveling in their accomplishment. He told them all to wander away from the fountain as they felt it was appropriate and gave them no timeframe or order to work with.
Warren Beatty, Ralph Fiennes and Michael Douglas were all considered for the part of Terry Benedict. Ewan McGregor was considered for Basher, Don Cheadle’s character. Mark Wahlberg was originally supposed to play Linus, Matt Damon’s role.
When Brad Pitt plays the doctor that come to the rescue of ‘Lymon Zerga,’ he’s wearing a wig that Mike Myers used to rehearse for Austin Powers. Brad was so unrecognizable when he put the wig and the glasses on, he wandered around the casino for a good 20 minutes just enjoying his anonymity.
Julia Roberts only spent two weeks on set.
Speaking of Julia, watch for her name in the credits. Her credit reads, “And introducing Julia Roberts as Tess.”
Don Cheadle was originally not listed in the credits. When asked why, he said that some things went down on the set behind the scenes that he didn’t like, so he told the producers to just take his name off. But it must not have been too bad - he appeared in both Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen.
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Star Trek as a Liberal/Progressive Vision of the Future
Michael Westmoreland-White sees the Star Trek universe as a liberal or progressive vision of the future, featuring things such as racial and gender equality, free universal health care, and an absence of imperalism. I’m neither liberal or progressive, but I think that he’s right.
But I do think that Star Trek is a fairly progressive/liberal science fiction franchise. It’s a basically hopeful vision of the future. It offers up a future earth that has survived war, terrorism, and ecological disasters and forged a global government of representative democracy (we are never told this, but it must be some form of federalist system to avoid tyranny). Hunger and poverty have been overcome. Most diseases have been conquered and high quality universal healthcare is available for all. Education is free and the world is highly literate with most people going beyond secondary education. It’s a clean energy society that is eco-friendly. (In Star Trek IV, the Enterprise crew in their stolen Klingon ship actually go back in time to the 20th C. to keep whales from going extinct–and in the process save the earth of their future.) There is finally global racial harmony. And, despite the micro-mini-skirted uniforms that reflected the fact that the original series was made in the ’60s, we finally have gender equality, too.
Image by Flickr user Tim Williams used under Creative Commons license
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You Can’t Please Everyone
Chris of Cynical-C blog has a nifty series called You Can’t Please Everyone. In it, he collects one-star Amazon reviews of classic movies, music, and literature.
Take, for instance, The Sound of Music starring Julie Andrews. The movie won 5 Academy Awards, including Best Picture in 1965. Adjusted for inflation, it made more than $1 billion in earnings since it was made … yet, even it can’t please everyone:
This movie was made in the sixties, we live in the 21st century, GET OVER IT!
I loved it when I was ten, but I think I’ve out grown it
When I see garbage like this, I finally understand what is wrong with the world. I watched this movie on a dare and was absolutely mortified!!!!! I would have given it negative stars if I could have. As an animal lover and vegetarian, I was especially offended!!! Anyone who is a fan of this series should run, not walk to the nearest Psychiatrist. You are in desperate need of having your head examined. And we as a society wonder why violence and seriel killers have become a part of daily life. Well, ladies and gentlemen I present to you Exhibit A…….
This movie should be called the Sound of Mucus. The only redeeming quality is that the family has to run from nazis.
See more of Cynical-C’s You Can’t Please Everyone series: Link - via kottke
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The Simpsons A Cappella
I can’t get enough of this: The Simpsons theme song, the a cappella version sung by Canvas. Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Land-O-Links
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Chuck Norris Protects Croatian Bakery From Burglars
Tired of getting burglarized regularly, a bakery in Split, Croatia, decided to solicit the protection of a certain Hollywood action star. At least in spirit:
The posh bakery shop in Split, Croatia, had often been broken until they put up the poster of the karate champ with a sign saying: "This shop is under the protection of Chuck Norris."
Now the bakery hasn’t had a single burglary for more than a month. "People seem to respect him," said a sales assistant.
Link (Photo: Europics.at)
Best Chuck Norris Fact in the comment about this post gets a Free Neatorama T-shirt. Ready, Set, Chuckify!
Update 5/13/09 - Congratulations to chrome who won with this bakery-themed Chuck Norris Fact: the bakers briefly switched the bear claws with “chuck norris claws” how ever the lack of survivors ran down business.
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10 Things Science Fiction Got Right
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Science fiction is supposed to predict future events - and to be entirely honest, some of us are getting impatient waiting for our own rocket cars to the Moon, which we understood we'd have by now. Be that as it may, here are some things dreamed up by science fiction writers that are part of our real world. 1. Moon Visits
The best candidate is good ol' Jules
Verne Verne was tremendously prolific, writing two novels a year for much of
his creative life and dying with quite a few novels unpublished. It's
not entirely surprising that he's credited with a number of other predictions,
including trips by balloon, helicopters, tanks, and electrical engines.
One "discovery" he's famously credited for, the submarine, is
inaccurate, since submarines existed prior to the 1870 publication of
20,000
Leagues Under the Sea 2. Robots (and Robot Pets!)
The word "robot" was popularized in Karel Capek's 1920 play
R.U.R. One thing people don't seem to know about Capek's "robots" is that they're not actually mechanical - they're made out of synthetic flesh, although that flesh was then put into a stamping mill to make the bodies. The concept of robots as mechanical beings came later and was most famously
popularized in fiction by writer Isaac
Asimov
The main character in the book is saving up to buy a realistic electric sheep for his lawn, so he'll be the envy of his neighbors (the movie had none of this suburban one-upmanship going on). Woody Allen, of all people, nailed the robot dog in 1973's Sleeper 3. Cloning and Genetic Engineering
The most famous work of science fiction with cloning and genetic engineering
is also one of the earliest: 1932's Brave New World 4. The Internet
But even before Gibson, John Brunner's 1975 novel, The
Shockwave Rider It should be noted that in 1975 a proto-form of the Internet did exist, thought not in the scope and complexity imagined by Brunner. It existed in the form of ARPANET, a decentralized computer system that the US Department of Defense created and which by 1975 also included several research universities as "nodes." Internet features created by 1975 include E-mail, online chat, and mailing lists. The most popular mailing list in 1975? One on science fiction, of course. 5. The World Wide Web
The dynamic of the Net had been described before then. In 1990's Earth 6. Webcams?Imagined (sort of) by every single science fiction author who ever wrote about a picture phone. There are too many of those to bother counting. 7. Waterbeds
Heinlein also thought up the idea of remotely controlled machines to manipulate dangerous materials; he called them "waldoes," and that's what they're called today. 8. Communications SatellitesScience fiction master Arthur C. Clarke is famous for having thought of these in 1945. 9. Space Tourists
The idea of punting rich folks beyond the stratosphere is not new; in
1962's A
Fall of Moondust More whimsically, author Roald Dahl imagined a "Space Hotel, USA"
in 1973's Charlie
and the Great Glass Elevator 10. Miniaturized Surgery
It's worth noting, however, that along with miniaturized surgical tools, Asimov also shrunk the doctors to fit into the patient's body. We haven't managed that one yet. |
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The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges Into the Universe. Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. If you like Neatorama, you'll love the Bathroom Reader Institute's books - go ahead and check 'em out!
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Lots
of science fiction writers had this one covered, but the question is:
Who got closest to the real thing first? 
,
whose 1865 novel, From the Earth to the Moon, and the 1870 follow-up,
Around the Moon, nailed a lot of the minutiae of a moon visit,
including weightlessness, the basic size of the space capsule, the size
of the crew (three men), and even the concept of splashdown into the ocean
on return to Earth. In one of those fun coincidences, the fictional splashdown
in Around the Moon was just a few miles from where the actual
Apollo 8 capsule splashed down (and, interestingly enough, the
fictional launch pad was just a few miles from Cape Canaveral).
.
"Robot"
comes from the Czech word robota, which means "drudgery";
robotnik is a word for "serf." Since today's robots
are typically found in industrial setting doing mindlessly repetitive
work, this is a strangely appropriate term. 
,
which stood for Rossum's Universal Robots. In the play, robots were manufactured
humans who were used as cheap labor. One day they got fed up with this
and decided to have a revolution and kill all the humans, proving once
again that good help really is hard to find. 
.
It's probably not a coincidence that a humanoid robot manufactured by
Honda is called "Asimo."
Robot
pets, like the Sony Aibo robot dog, have also been a staple of science
fiction. The most famous example of this is probably 
,
the 
.
,
in which we're introduced to Rags ("Hi! I'm Rags! Woof woof!").
Allen's reaction: "Is he housebroken? Or will he be leaving little
piles of batteries all over the place?"
Humans
haven't been cloned yet (as far as we know), but sheep, cats, cow, and
rabbits have. And humans have used genetic engineering and gene therapy
to improve their bodies. In June 2002, for example, it was announced that
genetically modified cells helped to create functioning immune systems
in two "bubble boys" who were born without immune systems of
their own.
, by Aldous
Huxley. In it, humans are "graded" into jobs and social classes
based on the number of clones that were made from their originating embryos;
the higher the number of clones, the less bright they are and the more
menial their jobs (this was backed by a social agenda that assured each
level of humanity that they were actually the best, so everyone went along
with it).
Okay,
now, who wants to be blamed for this one? There are so many culprits.
Author William Gibson is credited with coining the term "cyberspace"
in his 1981 short story "Burning Chrome," and kick-started the
whole media fascination with computers and the Internet and all that geekiness
with his seminal 1984 novel 
.
,
posited a continent-wide information net, "hackers" who broke
into the net, identity theft (when someone pretends to be someone else
online), and most famously, computer viruses and worms - the terminology
for these, in fact, comes from Brunner's book. Brunner imagined using
viruses and worms as part of warfare - something that worries today's
military quite a bit.
...
which, despite the propaganda of the 1990s, is not the whole Internet,
just a subsection of it - was created in 1991 by Tim Berners-Lee and hit
the big time with the creation of the Mosaic Web browser in 1993. 
,
David Brin imagined a streaming audio and video and clickable hypertext
links. And in a 1989 short story, "The Originist," based in
Isaac Asimov's "
"
universe, Orson Scott Card also created a linking system similar to today's
hyperlinking.
Yes,
waterbeds. Robert Heinlein used them in 1961's 
; the first modern waterbed was created in 1967 in San Francisco
by design student Charles Hall, who dubbed it the "pleasure pit"
(naughty boy). 
When
millionaire Dennis Tito put down his $20 million and hitched a ride into
space with the Russians, he became the first tourist in space. 
, Arthur C. Clarke told the tale of some rich tourists who get stranded
in a moon crater. 
,
complete with a staff of "managers, assistant managers, desk-clerks,
waitresses, bellboys, chambermaids, pastry chefs, and hall porters."
Doctors
these days use miniaturized tools to perform surgery that's less invasive
and more precise than traditional surgery, a practice suggested by Isaac
Asimov in his 1966 novel, 
.
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Star Wars Wedding (on Star Wars Day, Of Course!)
Since today is Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be with you), perhaps it’s only fitting that two of the movie series’ best fans are getting married … in full costume, of course!
The guests were told: ‘Members of the Galactic Empire, Duncan and Sammi met a long time ago, in a place far, far away. The force is strong with these two.
‘If you do not underestimate the power of marriage then together you can rule your house as husband and wife.’
Duncan and Sammi exchanged their own unique vows, using their favourite moments from Lucas’s timeless movies.
One of Duncan’s vows to Sammi said: ‘I promise to protect you from carbon freezing and promise to protect you from the Dark Side, through hyperspace and into the far reaches of the galaxy.’
Previously on Neatorama:
- Best Star Wars Wedding Ever: I Declare You Mon Calamari and Wife
- Honey, Do You Want a Star Trek or Star Wars Wedding?
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Happy Star Wars Day!
Rich pointed out that today is Star Wars Day {wiki}. The reason we celebrate on this day is explained in this graphic found at The blog of a Sci-Fi Geek. Link
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The 20 Best Bad Movies of the Past 20 Years
What do zombie chickens, Osama bin Laden and Paris Hilton have in common? They’re all in the best bad movies that have come out in the past 20 years.
Movies that were box office bombs, universally panned or just made as a bad movie from the ground up, here’s the 20 you hate to love as compiled by I Heart Chaos.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 
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7 Types of Bosses, According to Star Trek
Everything I’ve learned, I’ve learned from Star Trek. If no one has written that book, perhaps someone should. And this should be one of the chapters: io9 blog described 7 types of bad bosses, according to Star Trek (and how to survive them without setting phasers to kill). Take, for instance, this guy:
The bully. He alternates between jolly and grouchy — but even his jolly side is a little scary sometimes. He enjoys "teasing" his subordinates, especially anyone who’s different in some way, like having funny-shaped ears. "Notices" his female underlings a little too closely. He does give an inspiring speech about risk-taking, but that’s usually just to drag you into some weird body-switching scheme that will leave you with a weird rash for a month. He’s also the original "I want it done yesterday" boss, who’s "sick of hearing the word ‘can’t.’"
How to handle him: If he yells, yell back. Say "Dammit" a lot. If he asks how long something will take, exaggerate by at least 200 percent. If he starts cracking jokes at you, just ignore it, and he’ll probably go away. But never, ever make fun of him back. (I’ve totally had this boss, like twice, and thinking of him as Captain Kirk really helped.)
Link - via Miss Cellania
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Bruce Campbell Strikes Back, Sings Hungry Like the Wolf
So. John recently posted about Jeff Burk’s novel Shatner Quake, in which William Shatner (William Shatner? William Shatner. WILLIAM SHATNER!) battled all characters he ever played, after a failed terrorist attack by the Campbellians (who worships Bruce Campbell).
Though I haven’t read the novel, I immediately feel that this is an unwarranted attack on Bruce. First, take a look at the clip below, then tell me, is this the kind of man that can summon the Army of Darkness? Or cavort with The Evil Dead?
Duran Duran has got nothin’ on Bruce Campbell (plus, he probably smells good!)
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X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a Fan-Made Movie Trailer
Can’t wait for the new X-Men movie? Neither could Ryan Higa - but instead of fretting about waiting, he did something about it: he "sweded" his own X-Men Origins: Wolverine trailer. The result? Hilarious! (BTW, Ryan is the creator of the YouTube channel Nigahiga, the second most subscribed channel of all time on the site)
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]
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William Shatner? William Shatner. William Shatner!
Shatnerquake is a novel by Jeff Burk. Here’s the premise:
It’s the first ShatnerCon with William Shatner as the guest of honor! But after a failed terrorist attack by Campbellians, a crazy terrorist cult that worships Bruce Campbell, all of the characters ever played by William Shatner are suddenly sucked into our world. Their mission: hunt down and destroy the real William Shatner.
This is so Shatnerific that I’m having a screaming Shatnergasm right now.
Link via Topless Robot
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6 Famous Characters You Didn’t Know Were Shameless Rip Offs
You’ve heard of X-men, but do you remember Doom Patrol?
Unlike the X-Men, the Doom Patrollers were once normal people who suffered an accident that disfigured them but also gave them superpowers. Shunned by the world for just being plain ugly, the freaks were gathered by Doctor Caulder, a paraplegic, who thought that maybe the world wouldn’t dislike them so much if they used their powers to save the normal people’s asses from giant robots once in a while.
If this sounds somewhat familiar to you, it’s because the same thing as X-Men with the only difference that the smart guy in the wheelchair was bald in one and X-Men uses mutants as an allegory for minorities instead of people with elephantiasis or whatever the heck Doom Patrol was going for.
Cracked looks at six famous characters and their lesser-known precursors. I knew about The Lion King, but I was unfamiliar with the rest. Oh, I knew the last one, too, but I didn’t know how much they had in common. Link
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Movie Trivia: Clue
I took to Twitter to ask for suggestions on my latest movie trivia post but made the stipulation of no ‘80s movies. I think I’ve done too many of them lately. But then skyesblue said, “I’d vote Clue, but you vetoed that,” and I was hooked, just like that. I love me some Curry – Tim Curry, that is, and Madeline Kahn was beyond wonderful as always. So, Clue it is, and I promise no ‘80s movies next week.
First, a quick reminder of who’s who:
• Professor Plum – Christopher Lloyd
• Mrs. White – Madeline Kahn
• Mrs. Peacock - Eileen Brennan
• Miss Scarlet – Lesley Ann Warren
• Colonel Mustard – Martin Mull
• Wadsworth - Tim Curry
• Mr. Green - Michael McKean
When moviegoers purchased their ticket to see the movie, they also received a slip of paper just like the one that you use to keep track of the people, places and weapons in the game.
Jane Wiedlin of the GoGos played the Singing Telegram Girl. She was also Joan of Arc in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
Tim Curry says each of the principal cast only received $100,000 for the film, and they all had teeny-tiny trailers. So there were definitely no ego-trippers among them.
Clue was the first movie ever based on a board game, but it’s certainly not the last – Universal Pictures signed a deal with Hasbro last year to develop films based on Monopoly, Candy Land, the Ouija Board, Battleship and Magic: the Gathering. Stretch Armstrong was also included in the deal.
And, brace yourselves, there’s actually another Clue in the works. It was announced in February that Gore Verbinski has signed on to make another version of the board game-based movie for Universal. Ugh. Although… Johnny Depp as Wadsworth…? Anyone…?
Check out the floor in the Hall – it’s no coincidence that it looks an awful lot like the parquet floor on the original Clue game board.
It looks like an awesome old Gothic Mansion, doesn’t it? It’s quite convincing. But nearly all of the scenes were shot on a soundstage, except for those in the ballroom and the driveway gate scene. Sadly, the mansion used for the driveway scene burned down, so picture-hunters can’t even pose next to the big gate.
To make the set look authentically mansion-y, 18th and 19th century furniture and décor was borrowed from all over the place, including the estate of Theodore Roosevelt.
Each character drives a car the color of their name.
Keep your eye on Tim Curry whenever he’s in a scene with Eileen Brennan - he said he could barely hold a straight face around her becuase she was so hysterical. This is especially evident, he says, in the scene where she says “Hold out the gun.” He claims his shoulders are actually shaking from trying to hold in his laughter.
The movie took about two and a half months to make.
Three different endings to the movie were shot, and all of them were used! Imagine the confusion if a friend went to one theater and you went to another – “Wasn’t that great when it turned out that Mr. Boddy was actually the Butler?” “What do you mean, Mr. Boddy was the Butler?” OK, that probably wouldn’t have happened… it was well known that there were three endings, and newspaper listings even told you when each ending would be shown. The DVD shows you all of them, but you can also tell it to pick a random ending for you. The part where the movie splits into the three different endings is right after Wadsworth cuts the power.
Here are the endings:
• Ending A: The killer? Miss Scarlet. Yvette the maid used to work for her as a call girl and helped her murder Mr. Boddy and the cook. Miss Scarlet killed the rest of the victims herself. But, she’s busted: Wadsworth secretly works for the FBI and reveals himself just as the police show up to escort her to jail.
• Ending B: The killer? Mrs. Peacock, who single-handedly killed everyone. Again, Wadsworth the FBI agent busts her, and although she escapes by holding the survivors at gunpoint, the police are waiting when she gets outside.
• Ending C, my personal favorite: The killer? Everyone. But Wadsworth isn’t Wadsworth – he’s really Mr. Boddy. The man everyone thought to be Mr. Boddy (you know, the corpse) was actually the butler. Wadsworth had been working with each of these people in his extortion scheme and figured they would all kill each other off if given the right circumstances, and they did… except for Mr. Green, who is the undercover FBI agent this time, and he kills Wadsworth and has the rest of the guests arrested.
• Ending D, which was scripted and shot but never released: Wadsworth admits that he killed Mr. Boddy, and now he has killed all of them, too: he poisoned everyone. Except the police show up and disarm Wadsworth, who then goes through the whole exhausting confession that he already gave to the guests, running around the house and reenacting the whole scenario. When he tells the part about meeting Col. Mustard at the front door, he steps outside and locks everyone in, then makes off in the police car… except there’s an angry German Shepard in the back seat.
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Video Game Covers as Artsy Films
Photos: cossix and daphny [Flickr]
Selectbutton forum user Daphaknee reworked videogame covers as if they were vintage art films. The result is fantastic - here’s the entire list: Link - via Wonderland
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A Shrek Wedding
When Christine England married Keith Green of Barnstaple, Devon, England, she took her new name as Mrs. Green seriously -they took their vows dressed as Shrek and Fiona from the Dreamworks movie Shrek! Their 100 wedding guests were also in fantasy costumes.
‘It was funny because when we said our vows Keith had these green ears sprouting from the top of his head.’
She tried to get her 18-year-old son to dress up as Donkey, another character from the offbeat cartoon fairytale, but said ‘he wasn’t having any of it’.
Mr Green, a builder - who doesn’t seem to mind being likened to an ogre - added: ‘It was a very strange experience to say the least, but a thoroughly enjoyable one. We love the films and my wife tells me I bear a resemblance to Shrek.’
The couple hired a make-up artist to make them look like the characters - voiced by Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz - in the hit films.
Christine’s mother Annette England, 66, said: ‘It’s not necessarily how you imagine seeing your daughter get married but it was great fun.’
Link -via Unique Daily
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5 Things You Didn’t Know About Bea Arthur: A Tribute
Bea Arthur (1922-2009) - YouTube user Sassyornek created a fantastic tribute
to Bea, check it out here: Link
(Photo: Lifetime Intimate Portrait)
Tony- and Emmy-winning actress and comedian Bea Arthur has died. Though she is best known as Dorothy Zbornak on the 80's television sitcom The Golden Girls, her career actually spanned seven decades.
To celebrate the life and career of Bea Arthur, let's take a look at 5 Things About Bea Arthur You Didn't Know:
1. Bea Arthur Was a Marine
Before World War II, Bea was a medical technician. She volunteered to
join the US Marine Corps, becoming one of its first female recruits. (Source)
2. Bea Arthur Got Her Start in Comedy by Being a Lounge Singer
In an interview, Bea said that when she got up on stage to sign a torch
song, the audience laughed at her because of her deep voice and height.
The nightclub manager told her that she was in the wrong business being
a lounge singer, and that she should be doing comedy instead. (Source)
But Bea can sure can sing. Here's a clip of her singing "What'll I Do?" from The Golden Girls' episode Journey to the Center of Attention:
3. Bea Arthur Never Had a Star on the Walk of Fame
Bea was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame a few months ago, but
she never had a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame. A travesty!
She may have a shot yet, you can nominate someone for a Walk of Fame Star, but you'd have to wait five years first for a posthumous nomination.
4. Bea Arthur was in The Star Wars Holiday Special
She sang as Ackmena, the nightshift bartender in Chalmun's Cantina in
Tatooine, in the much-maligned Star Wars Holiday Special of 1978.
5. Bea Arthur was the Femputer
Watch the Hulu clip at IMDb: Death
by Snu Snu
In the 2001 Futurama episode, Amazon Women in the Mood, Bea was the voice of the Femputer, the leader of the man-hatin' tribe of Amazonian women. Bea has left us, but we can still hear her sentence Fry and friends to "death by snu-snu" over and over again.
Bea Arthur, rest in peace. You shall be missed.
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Five Familiar Actresses in a Different Light
The announcement of Bea Arthur’s death today made me think about actresses that we think of as kind of grandmotherly types. Obviously, they didn’t always look like nanas. Here are five ladies that we know and love(d) for their portrayal of older women, but I think the pictures will make you see them in a different light. They made me see them in a different light, at least!
Betty White
Betty White has been on the screen - small and silver - since 1945 when she had a part in Time to Kill, a George Reeves movie. But she was modeling before that, which I totally believe looking at that picture. Who knew Betty White was such a stunner? By the mid-50s she had her own sitcom called Life With Elizabeth (clip below) and ever since then she’s been in high demand, starring in shows such as Date with the Angels, Mary Tyler Moore, The Betty White Show, Mama’s Family, and, of course, Golden Girls. Her latest work is The Proposal, a movie due to be released in June starring Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock.
Angela Lansbury
Anyone who associates Angela Lansbury with Jessica Fletcher - and let’s face it, who doesn’t? - is probably pretty shocked by how gorgeous she was in her younger days. I know I was. She and her mother and brother moved to L.A. in the early ’40s when her mother, actress Moyna Macgill, decided to seek work there. A former resident of England, Angela’s mother often held parties and get-togethers for British actors and actresses who had come to L.A. to make it big just like she had. It was at one of these little shindigs that she met an actor who introduced her to a casting director who ended up putting Angela in The Picture of Dorian Gray and Gaslight. Both performances earned her Oscar nominations, so Angela was a sought-after actress right from her debut in Hollywood. Since then she’s done everything from playing a singing baker who specializes in people pies (Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd) to voicing an animated tea pot (Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast. And there’s obviously her Murder She Wrote streak - 12 Emmy noms in as many years. The picture is from 1943’s Samson and Delilah, which starred Hedy Lamarr. She would have been 18 or 19 at the time.
Jessica Tandy
I’ve only ever known Jessica Tandy for her roles as elderly women - Fried Green Tomatoes and Driving Miss Daisy to be exact. I love Alfred Hitchcock films and have been enjoying The Birds for years without realizing that she played Lydia Brenner - I didn’t recognize her at all. But I really didn’t recognize her in this amazing picture from Life magazine. She was only 16 when she started acting in London, starting her career out with the likes of Laurence Olivier. But when she and actor Jack Hawkins divorced, she picked up and moved to the U.S. to pursue a career there instead. She won a Tony for A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948, but lost the movie role to Vivien Leigh. Convinced her movie career wasn’t really going to pan out, she mostly stuck to Broadway for the next 30 years or so (except for couple of movies here and there, like The Birds). She returned to movies in the ’80s and started working with her husband, Hume Cronyn. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1989 for playing Miss Daisy Werthan - she was 80 at the time, making her the oldest actress to ever win an Oscar. She was also nominated for Fried Green Tomatoes in 1991 but was beaten by Mercedes Ruehl for The Fisher King. Jessica died in 1994 at the age of 85.
Gloria Stuart
These days, 98-year-old Gloria Stuart is best known for playing the older version of Rose in 1997’s Titanic, but she made her movie debut more than 60 years earlier. She graduated from Santa Monica High School in 1927 and immediately took up at the Pasadena Playhouse, where she was “discovered.” She was selected as a WAMPAS (Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers) Baby Star in 1932 along with Ginger Rogers. She played Flora Cranley opposite Claude Rains in The Invisible Man (and received top billing!) and was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild. By the end of the ’30s she had been in more than 40 films and was ready for a break; she took up oil painting and was good enough to book one-woman shows in galleries in New York. Gloria didn’t come back to the industry until the 1975 made-for-TV movie The Legend of Lizzie Borden - the one with Elizabeth Montgomery as Lizzie. It wasn’t until she played Rose in Titanic, though, that she really came back to light as an actress. She became the oldest person to ever be nominated for a non-honorary Oscar, but she lost out to Kim Basinger for L.A. Confidential. She’s still around today and is good friends with Olivia de Havilland - she, Oliva, Joan Fontaine, Shirley Temple, Maureen O’Hara, Deanna Durbin and Luise Rainer are the last of the big female stars from the ’30s.
Rue McClanahan
We can’t forget the other surviving Golden Girl, Miss Blanche Devereaux herself. Rue hails from Healdton, Oklahoma, and headed to New York to make her name on Broadway after she graduated from the University of Tulsa in 1957. She starred in a couple of B movies during the ’60s but really gained notoriety as Caroline Johnson on Another World in 1970. She and Bea Arthur first teamed up in 1972 on Maude and was on the first few seasons of Mama’s Family with Betty White, the Girls were all familiar with one another by the time Golden Girls rolled around in 1985. She’s still quite active today, appearing in various Broadway roles and TV guest spots. And she’s still pretty!
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10 Most Celebrated TV Show Hangouts
We often forget about how iconic the "hangout" is to the TV sitcoms. In a lot of ways, the hangout becomes a character. Anyway, this list of 10 most celebrated TV show hangouts includes the Bluth’s Banana Stand. How awesome is that!? "The big yellow joint…"
We tend to get drawn into our favorite TV shows; we know what the characters do for a living and are privy to their groups of friends. But in order to really love a sitcom or dramatic series, it must be set to perfection—in other words, it’s all about the hangout spots. From the Three’s Company bar, Regal Beagle, to Beverly Hills, 90210’s diner, the Peach Pit, these renowned places—where our favorite small-screen characters gathered—ignite big memories for those of us who loyally tuned in. Reminisce with us as you check out these 10 famous spots where love, laughs and drama all unfolded—and where everyone definitely knew one another’s names.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 
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