loonyblog.

The first trailer is out, for the movie adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s (and Charles Vess’) Stardust. Here’s the crappy YouTube version…there’s a slightly less crappy Flash version on the official site:

It certainly looks like it’s been given the full treatment, which is nice. Some of the casting seems like it sounded better on paper than in practice (like Robert De Niro), but it looks like it should be a fun movie.

Having said that, I’ll always think there was a missed opportunity here to do a lavishly illustrated animated movie. I’d love to see Charles Vess’ art animated in some way. Wouldn’t this make a great movie in the right hands?

Maybe it’s just me. In any event, at least I can look forward to Henry Selick’s adaptation of Coraline, which should be delightfully demented.

Yeah, I know this is a clear violation of my own rules, but dude, if you haven’t already, go check out the trailer for the year’s biggest game. Fantastic. I tip my hat to those guys. Not only is it gorgeous and stunningly accurate, but the nod to Philip Glass/Koyaanisqatsi is spot-on. October can’t come fast enough.

For the record, I had no idea about any of this before today. We’re corporately connected, but for all intents and purposes, we’re two separate companies.

I’m on the road at the moment, visiting a developer whose name rhymes with um…Firaxis. Anyway, aside from finally giving me some time to play some handheld games, this is my first excuse to try out my swanky MacBook Pro as an actual laptop, and not as the desktop replacement it is when it’s plugged in at home.

The quick version? It’s awesome. I absolutely love that I don’t have to go through some complicated rigamarole just to sync up my laptop with my desktop (and why would I? It’s both!). Parallels means I can use the real version of Outlook’s web client and use Access databases while traveling (don’t ask me why Microsoft never made a Mac port of Access), I have all my usual apps and files, and good lord, Front Row kicks ass.

Seriously, the first time you just randomly press the menu button and see that instantaneous zoom out, it’s pretty shocking (or at least it was for me, anyway…I didn’t know it did that!). As someone who has spent a lot of time on the road, and an awful lot of time watching movies on my laptop, this is just what I wanted. It’s too bad Apple no longer uses that super-simple video out port they had in my iBook G3. Back then all you needed was an A/V cable that plugged into the headphone jack, and poof, you got great looking video over composite cables. Now if you want to do it you need to get a DVI-to-video adapter, then couple that with a separate audio cable. Since all I use this for is for those rare occasions when my hotel room has video-in on the TV, that’s just too much to travel with. The 15″ 16:10 screen certainly makes it a lot easier to watch movies than my old 12″ iBook, but it’s still not as nice as watching it on a television.

Still, having everything I would have at home with me on the road is super cool. I know I made do before with separate desktop and laptop computers, but that just seems like so much less elegant than this. Plus this laptop runs X-COM, and dammit that’s the best thing of all.

The first trailer is out for Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, the next title from Insomiac Games, and the first real reason to own a PS3:

I can’t wait. Yeah, I want to play Resistance: Fall of Man (also an Insomniac title), but it’s no Ratchet & Clank. My GameStop sellback PS3 fund is (as of yesterday morning) up to $188, so I’m almost a third of the way to getting a PS3. The way I go through games, I should be hitting that $600 mark sometime around the fall (although if Sony were to say, drop the price, that would make things a bit easier).

I love Ratchet & Clank. I played R&C3 when it came out, and have been going back and playing the earlier ones (I’m playing Going Commando now, actually). They’re just so much fun and so well made. This one looks like more of the same, only you know, with like a billion times the graphics. Should be great.

Apparently Hollywood has had another brilliant idea, and there are plans to make an adaptation of Milton’s Paradise Lost. Heath Ledger (the Joker) and Daniel Craig (James Bond) are the top choices for Lucifer.

Um. What?

Don’t get me wrong, I happen to really like Paradise Lost and all, but…what the hell? (Pun not intended). Can you imagine the kind of big budget nonsense they’ll turn it into?

I can see the teaser trailer now:

An explosion. The camera zooms in on Lucifer. His hair is matted with sweat and blood. He clutches his sword in one hand, and is holding himself upright against a rock with the other. He looks straight at the camera (giving the Kubrick look, smiling) and says:

“Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”

Explosion. The Terminator 2 music starts playing. Title card comes zooming in, then bursts into flames. Fades out. Final text fades in: A MICHAEL BAY FILM.

I can’t wait.

Some lovely news on comic book movies in development…

First up is word that Maggie Gyllenhaal has replaced Katie Holmes as the Rachel Dawes character in The Dark Knight, the sequel to Batman Begins. She’s a fine actress, and I’m sure she’ll do fine, but why do people insist on shoehorning a love interest into Batman movies? Batman is not a romantic character. Superman has Lois Lane. Wonder Woman has Steve Trevor. Spider-Man has Mary Jane. Batman? Batman flies solo, or if he must have a love interest, it’s either Talia al Ghul or Catwoman. And even those are best when it’s just double entendres, and not actually a real love story.

The other wonderful news is this test image from Zach Snyder’s Watchmen:

It’s not a “real” movie shot, it’s just a test. It hasn’t been cast, filming hasn’t begun and so on, so there’s still hope that this will fall through like all the other previous attempts to get it made. As I’ve said before, I don’t see how this can happen as anything less than a 12 part (or at least 6) part series on HBO. There’s just too much story that would have to be dropped to fit into a two hour movie. Watchmen is one of my favorite graphic novels of all-time. It deserves better than to be sliced and diced to fit into a two hour (or god help us all, less) block.

This is the greatest laptop ever made.

Yeah, you’re not dreaming…that’s X-COM. On a Mac. Or more specifically, X-COM for Win95 running in XP’s compatibility mode in Parallels in OS X. With no hitches. Truly this is a golden age.

It would probably run better in true ‘95, but I don’t have a ‘95 install CD anymore. I do have Windows Me, but I’d rather play X-COM: Enforcer again than reinstall that disaster, even in an emulation window. It probably runs best in DOSBox, but I don’t have X-COM for DOS, just the Collector’s Edition for ‘95.

But the fact that it runs at all is freaking amazing as far as I’m concerned. Now I just need more excuses to travel so I can be the guy on the airplane playing X-COM. Oh yeah that’s right, I’m that guy.

That headline is correct…I am the proud owner of a FREE* MacBook Pro. I’ll get to the catch in a second, but here’s the basics:

1. I got a MacBook Pro, 2.16GHz.
2. I didn’t have to sell out every one I know (like I did when I got a FREE* iPod).

A company called NuiTech (AKA TheUseful) has a deal where you can get a FREE* MacBook Pro (okay, I’ll stop writing it that way…promise). All you have to do is complete 18 offers. Most of the offers give you instant credit with minimal pain on your part, and you can cancel the second you’re given credit by NuiTech. There are three pages of deals, the third page has the most painful ones, which generally require you to sign up for something (like Sirius Radio), and to cancel it you’ll need to manually ship something back. The rest of the deals are pretty painless, and most can be canceled via an automated number. You can read all about it at my recent iPod debacle (which I can’t really complain about, since I didn’t pay for that one and I’ve since won a new one) I always need to have AppleCare, and I also needed to get an extra gig of RAM in there (I really wanted to go to three gigs total, but those two gig cards are impossibly expensive). I’ll post some more info on my transition to the world of Intel OS X in the near future.

This is where I would usually tell you how you can go out and take advantage of this insane deal for yourself, but that unfortunately isn’t possible — NuiTech, probably figuring out that they were shipping far too many of these things, recently changed the rules. If you want to do this now you need to stay signed up for the offers for at least 90 days, which means you’ll wind up paying for two months at full price for these offers. Do the math and suddenly you’re spending almost as much as you would if you just went out and bought yourself a laptop. Full details are up at JoshClark.com. I’m just glad I got in while I still could…my desktop Mac was not doing well…I seriously was worried that it wasn’t going to last until this new one was delivered.

So yeah, it may be FREE*, but it was a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a new one (even with my educational discount), and since we (*gulp*) actually owe money in taxes this year (a side effect of our buying an apartment two years ago and Heather changing jobs), this was the only way I was going to get one. Also it rocks. And I need a computer that can rock like I can.

I’m a little late with this, but in case you were wondering, I won my annual Oscar bet with my father. I got 9 out of the 17 categories we bet on, for just over 50% accuracy. That makes it not exactly among my best years, but there were some real shockers in there.

I was delighted to see Alan Arkin win, downright flabbergasted that Guillermo del Toro didn’t win, and don’t even start with me on the costume category…my only explanation there is that voters blindly went with the period piece without ever actually thinking about the movies. Not only was Marie Antoinette the lowest rated film in that category (53% on Rotten Tomatoes), but it didn’t win squat until the Oscars.

But the biggest shocker for me was the category that caused my win…best original song. My father went with one of the three songs from Dreamgirls — the one by Beyonce nonetheless. But (as I mentioned when I posted my picks) I decided to go with Melissa Etheridge, figuring that Dreamgirls would split its own vote and Randy Neuman already has a handful of Oscars. That made sense to me when I wrote it, but when the gospel choir (!) came out for one of those Dreamgirls songs, I was pretty worried. But what do you know, against all odds, the song from a documentary actually won. Since my father and I only split on two categories (the other was costume design, which we both got wrong), that meant I won. Woo hoo!

All in all, it was a good show this year. Ellen wasn’t spectacular as a host, but she was about as good as most other hosts have been. Personally I think Billy Crystal is overrated and Steve Martin and Whoopi Goldberg never got the credit they deserved…but I admit I’m a little weird in that regard.

I now go back to whatever it is I do for the other 364 days of the year.

Another two weeks, another ShackArt submission. This time the subject was “The Punisher.” Since I think that character is one of the lamest in the Marvel pantheon (okay, maybe not as lame as NFL Superpro), I went in a slightly different direction.

In case you were wondering, that Duke image on the left is the illustration by Mike Sanzone (who had a gallery opening this evening!) for loonygames’ “Is Duke Nukem Sexist?” article from issue 1.3. Lord knows I’m not good enough to draw that.

As always, you can see all the other submissions at Unsee.org, and I keep an archive of my own here (new URL).