More STAR WARS movies?

By the time you read this rumor it will probably already be debunked, but SCI FI Wire is reporting that George Lucas is allegedly working on three new 3D Star Wars pictures.

Here's hoping it is just a rumor. At this point the prospect of Lucas further tainting his legacy is just depressing. I recently came to the grim realization that the Star Wars franchise is now at least half crap, and it's probably more like 2/3rds. Even if we agree that the original Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back are great and we grade Return of the Jedi generously, then you've got those wretched prequels, a pair of pretty rank Ewok TV movies, the Star Wars Holiday Special, the Droids cartoon from the '80s, that Clone Wars TV series and the upcoming live action TV series that you just know will suck Bantha poodoo... That's three (well, be fair, two and a half) classic movies, in a franchise that has otherwise pretty much been three long decades of constant disappointment.

I'm sorry, but it must be said. Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

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"Manualist" plays SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW with hand-farts

You know that thing your weird cousin used to do when you were kids, where he could squeeze his hands together and make them fart out Mary Had a Little Lamb or Happy Birthday to You? Gerry Phillips has been making his hands fart out songs for decades, and today he is arguably the world's greatest hand-farter. (He prefers the term "manualist", but to me that sounds like somebody who writes instructional manuals or something. You're a hand-farter, Gerry! Be proud to be a hand-farter!)

In this clip, Phillips pinches out the Wizard of Oz classic, Somewhere Over the Rainbow. He really nails those high notes, doesn't he? Aye, 'tis a thing of beauty t'would bring a tear to Judy Garland's eye.



If this clip leaves you aching for more of Gerry's manualizing, he has posted lots of other songs on his Youtube page. Lots and lots, in just about every genre imaginable. You want Herbie Hancock's Rockit? He's got it. Under the Bridge? Poker Face? Don't Stop Believing? You name it, and this guy has posted a video of himself performing it. I wish local radio had a playlist as eclectic as this guy.

(Dear Lord... I hope he's making those sounds with his hands.)

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MIGHTY BOOSH/STAR WARS mashup

In this clip from Youtube user BobSetchthe2nd, Howard Moon and Vince Noir's journey through time and space takes them back a long time ago to a galaxy far, far away.

Mashing up The Mighty Boosh and classic Star Wars is a clever idea and this clip is funny-ish, but it goes on a bit too long and it probably would've worked a lot better with some sort of actual story, however contrived or silly. Just dropping Howard and Vince into random Star Wars scenes gets a little tired after a while, it loses momentum. Still, if you're a fan of the Boosh and Star Wars (and you have to be a really big Boosh fan to get even half of these references), this clip is pretty much a must-see.



He's also got a Boosh/Harry Potter mashup, if you want it. Same deal: sort of funny, but it's just lots of little clips and it kind of goes on forever. But the Boosh boys actually blend in pretty well around Hogwarts, and it's sort of nice to see Howard's lecture on frogs and bears actually find a receptive audience. (Note that both clips feature plenty of swears, enough that they might be NSFW.)


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The weird science of Keith Tyson

Keith Tyson is an award-winning British artist whose work often looks sort of like science experiments gone wrong, but in the best way. Most if his work isn't as creepy as Mr. Cube over there, but it'll definitely put a nice crimp in your day.

His website is very flash-heavy and not too easy to steer, but it's worth clicking around and seeing what the heck you discover. Just think of it as the weirdest, slowest video game ever... And one where no matter what you do, you win!

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REVENGE OF THE SITH: THE AARDMAN VERSION

Revenge of the Sith recast with the little clay people from Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. This is a very silly business indeed, but it's a masterful editing job and I damn near laughed the socks right off my feet.

Again: very, very silly. But great.




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WONDERLANDS: ALICE IN WONDERLAND, 1981

Is Efrem Pruzhansky's 1981 Russian version of Alice in Wonderland, yes? Is story about the little girl who chases the rabbit with watch, and the little girl is falling down a hole and landing in the place full of the wonderful crazy people and the disappearing cat with the grin that talks. Is in Russian, but even if you don't speak language, movie is still scrambling your brains like talking egg that falls off of wall. Is good!



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The pop-up wonders of Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart

My girlfriend recently had a birthday, and I gave her a little pile of pop-up books as gifts. No, my girlfriend isn't six. (Honestly, officer.) But she is a fan of really well-made pop-ups, and nobody makes 'em better than New York artists Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart.

If you haven't had occasion to check out pop-up books lately, you've missed out on an amazing renaissance in the form, largely thanks to the work of Sabuda and Reinhart. They do things with paper that don't even seem possible. In Sabuda's Wizard of Oz, a Kansas twister comes spinning out at your face and an entire Emerald City rises off the page, green and glittery and so solid you feel like you could walk around in it. In his version of Alice in Wonderland, the courtroom scene culminates in dozens of playing card people flying off the page and around the giant Alice's head like a swarm of angry hornets - and they actually fly off the page, hovering there before you. It's like nothing you've ever seen.

In this clip the pair walk you through some of their relatively crude early work, building up to the full-color extravaganzas they create today.



If you know a kid who isn't interested in reading, buy them one of these books and they'll spend days on the floor of their bedroom, turning those pages and trying to figure out the magic between those covers. And take my word for it, these books make fairly inexpensive but spectacular gifts for your girlfriend, wife, mistress or common-law bride. Who needs fancy chocolates and diamond rings when they can open a book and have their own Narnia, their own Wonderland, their own Oz?


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Duchovny talks X-FILES 3

In an interview with The Daily Beast, X-Files star David Duchovny offers his own take on what should happen if there is another sequel.

Duchovny looks forward to filming a third X-Files film in the near future. “As far as the X-Files movie I’d like to do next, if we get a chance to do it, would be a return to the heart and soul of the mythology, which is the alien-oriented conspiracy. I think it’s natural for The X-Files to have another movie in 2012, so we’ll see if we get to do it.” He defends last year’s widely panned I Want to Believe, as well as the polarizing last few seasons of the television run: “I was happy with it… I have nothing but respect for [X-Files creator] Chris Carter and the writing staff.”

If there is going to be another film (and there better be, or all that stuff about the big scary things coming in 2012 is going to seem even more anticlimactic), Duchovny's right that the alien mythology is definitely the way to go. I Want to Believe was disappointing and the franchise does seem pretty dead at this point, but I bet a lot of people would be interested in seeing Mulder and Scully have one last adventure, if it was handled right... And that means alien abductions and spooky lights in the sky, not some sad, puzzling, transgendered Frankenstein who spends the whole damn movie asleep on a slab.

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Find the Fish

If you're having a slow work day today, why not liven things up with a game of Find the Fish, quite probably the weirdest bit that Monty Python ever did. (Hey, it beats the heck out of Minesweeper.) I've been looking for a couple of decades now, and so far I've yet to spot that most elusive fish. Well, maybe this time...

I'm keeping my eye on that elephant waiter monster. Although I also suspect that the new wave drag queen with faucet boobs knows more than she's telling.



Poor leering nightmare man with crazy, bendy arms. Shall you never find your fishy friend? Oh, fishy, fishy, fishy, fish...


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Murray unenthused about GHOSTBUSTERS 3

For months we've heard a lot about progress on a third Ghostbusters movie, but lately Bill Murray has been making it increasingly clear that he is by no means committed to the project. Recently he made his reservations known in an interview with the UK's Absolute Radio, and a few days ago he elaborated a bit while speaking with Times Online.

We finish on the future and Ghostbusters III. The news that there is third movie on the way has been chewing up the internet for months. Typically, Murray, who is next up in Jim Jarmusch’s fantastically droll assassin’s tale The Limits of Control, is not entirely enthusiastic about the idea. "What they really want from us is just to open the movie and then get lost after introducing a new generation of ghostbusters, who can start the franchise all over again," he says with a shrug. "I’ve heard the script idea, and part of it is good but, ye know, it’s going to be tough to start again."

As I've said before, if the plan really is to just have the original Ghostbusters essentially do a cameo to introduce a new team, I think it's a terrible idea. Sure, Hollywood is going to be itchy about the prospect of a major feature headlined by senior citizens. But come on, this is the Ghostbusters we're talking about! Audiences want to see Bill Murray and company strapping on the proton packs, they want to hear that corny old Ray Parker Jr. theme song, they want Slimer to be a kind of cheap-looking rubber puppet.

Somebody already tried to reboot the franchise without the original characters. It was called Extreme Ghostbusters, and today it's all but forgotten. (I hadn't even heard of it until today, and I'm a Ghostbusters fan and a cartoon geek.) You make a movie without the old cast front and center, and it'll be a disaster of biblical proportions, real wrath of God type stuff. Earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!


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